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LEISURE HOUR series 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT 


THEODORE WINTHROP 

AUTHOR OF “CECIL DREEME,” “JOHN BRENT,” ETC. 



NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
1876 



I 


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by 
TICKNOR AND FIELDS, 

in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 





i 







PART I 




EDWIN BROTHERTOFT 



The Cavaliers always ran when they saw Puri- 
tan Colonel Brothertoft and his troop of white 
horses coming. 

They ran from the lost battle of Horneastle, in 
the days of the great rebellion, and the Colonel 
chased. 

North and West he chased over the heaths 
and wolds of his native Lincolnshire. Every 
leap took him farther away from the peaked 
turrets of Brothertoft Manor-House, — his home, 
midway between the towers of Lincoln Cathe- 
dral and Boston on the Witham. 

Late at night he rode wearily back to Horn 
castle. He first took care that those famous 
horses were fed a good feed, after their good 
fight and brave chase, and then laid himseli 
down in his cloak to sleep beside Cromwell aw* 
Fairfax. 

Presently a youth on a white horse came gallop 


8 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


ing into the town, up to the quaint house where 
the Colonel quartered, and shouted for him. 
Brothertoft looked out at the window. By the 
faint light he recognized young Galsworthy, son 
of his richest tenant and trustiest follower. 

“ The King’s people have attacked the Manor- 
House,” cried the boy. “ My lady is trying to 
hold it with the servants. I come for help.” 

In a moment a score of men were mounted 
and dashing southward. Ten miles to go. They 
knew every foot of it. The twenty white horses 
galloped close, and took their leaps together 
steadily, — an heroic sight to be seen in that 
clear, frosty night of October! 

The fire of dawn already glimmered in the 
east when they began to see another fire on the 
southern horizon. The Colonel’s heart told him 
whose towers were burning. They rode their 
best ; but they had miles to go, and the red 
flames outran them. 

Colonel Brothertoft said not a word. He 
spurred on, and close at his heels came the 
troop, with the fire shining on their corselets and 
gleaming in the eyes of their horses. 

Safe ! yes ; the house might go, — for his dear 
wife was safe, and his dear son, his little name- 
sake Edwin, was safe in her arms. 

The brave lady too had beaten off the maraud- 
ers. But fight fire as they would, they could 


EDWIN BKOTHERTOFT. 


9 


rescue only one angle of the mansion. That 
“ curious new brique fabrick, four square, with 
a turret at each corner, two good Courts, a fine 
Library, and most roman tick Wildernesse; a 
pleasant noble seat, worthie to be noted by alle,” 
— so it is described in an Itinerary of 1620, — 
had been made to bear the penalty for its mas- 
ter’s faith to Freedom. 

“ There is no service without suffering,” he 
quietly said, as he stood with the fair Lucy, his 
wife, after sunrise, before the smoking ruins. 

He looked west over the green uplands of his 
manor, and east over his broad acres of fenny 
land, billowy with rank grass, and all the beloved 
scene seemed strange and unlovely to him. 

Even the three beautiful towers of Lincoln 
Cathedral full in view, his old companions and 
monitors, now emphasized the devastation of his 
home. 

He could not dally with regrets. There was 
still work for him and the Brothertoft horses to 
do. He must leave his wife well guarded, and 
gallop back. 

So there was a parting and a group, — the fair 
wife, the devoted soldier, the white charger, and 
the child awakened to say good-bye, and scared 
at his father’s glinting corselet, — a group such 
as a painter loves. 

The Colonel bore westward to cross the line 
1* 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


1G 

of march of the Parliamentary army, and by and 
by, as he drew nearer the three towers of Lin- 
coln, they began to talk to him by Great Tom, 
the bell. 

From his youth up, the Great Tom of Lincoln, 
then in full swing and full roar, had aroused, 
warned, calmed, and comforted him, singing to 
him, along the west wind, pious chants, merry 
refrains, graceful madrigals, stirring lyrics, more 
than could be repeated, even “ if all the geese 
in Lincoln’s fens Produced spontaneous well- 
made pens,” and every pen were a writer of 
poetry and music. 

To-day Great Tom had but one verse to repeat, 

“ Westward ho ! A new home across the seas.” 

This was its stern command to the Puritan 
Colonel, saddened by the harm and cruelty of 
war. 

“ Yes, my old oracle,” he replied, “ if we fail, 
if we lose Liberty here, I will obey, and seek 
it in the New World.” 

For a time it seemed ’-'that they had not failed. 
England became a Commonwealth. Brothertoft 
returned in peace to his dismantled home. Its 
ancient splendors could never be restored. Three 
fourths of the patriot’s estate were gone. He 
was too generous to require back from his party, 
iu its success, what he had frankly given for the 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


11 


nation’s weal. He lived quietly and sparingly. 
His sole extravagance was, that, as a monument 
of bygone grandeur, he commissioned Sir An- 
thony Tandy ck to paint him, his wife, his boy, 
and the white charger, as they stood grouped for 
the parting the morning of the fire. 

So green ivy covered the ruins, and for years 
Great Tom of Lincoln never renewed its sen- 
tence of exile. 

Time passed. Kingly Oliver died. There was 
no Protector blood in gentle Richard Cromwell. 
He could not wield the land. “ Ho for cava- 
liers ! hey for cavaliers ! ” In came the Merrie 
Monarch. Out Puritans, and in Nell Gwynn ! 
Out crop-ears and in love-locks ! Away sad 
colors ! only frippery is the mode. To prison 
stout John Bunyan ; to office slight Sam Pepys ! 
To your blind study, John Milton, and indite 
Paradise Lost ; to Whitehall, John Wilmot, Earl 
of Rochester, and scribble your poem, “Noth- 
ing ! ” Yes ; go Bigotry, your jackboots smell 
unsavory ; enter Prelacy in fine linen and per- 
fume ! Procul , O procul , Libertas ! for, alas ! 
English knees bend to the King’s mistress, and 
English voices swear, “ The King can do no 
wrong.” Boom sullenly, Great Tom of Lincoln, 
the dirge of Freedom ! 

Ring solemnly, Great Tom of Lincoln, to 
Colonel Bj-othertoft the stern command revived* 


12 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


Syllable again along the west wind the sen 
tenee of exile, — 

“ Westward ho 1 A new home across the seas ! ” 

Every day the nation cringed baser and baser. 
Every day the great bell, from its station high 
above all the land, shouted more vehemently 
to the lord of Brothertoft Manor to shake the 
dust from his feet, and withdraw himself from 
among a people grown utterly dastard. His 
young hopes were perished. His old associates 
were slain or silenced. He would go. 

And just at this moment, when in 1665 all 
freedom was dead in England, Winthrop of 
Connecticut wrote to his friend at Brothertoft 
Manor: “We have conquered the Province of 
New Netherlands. The land is goodlie, and 
there is a great brave river running through 
the midst of it. Sell thy Manor, bring thy 
people, and come to us. We need thee, and 
the like of thee, in our new communities. We 
have brawn enow, and much godlinesse and 
singing of psalms ; but gentlemen and gentle- 
women be few among us.” 

So farewell to England, debauched and dis- 
graced ! 

Great Tom of Lincoln tolled farewell, and the 
beautiful tower of St. Botolph’s at Boston saw 
the exiles out to sea. 


II. 


Bluff is the bow and round as a pumpkin 
is the stern of the Dutch brig, swinging to its 
anchor in the bay of New York. It is the new 
arrival from England, this sweet autumn day of 
1665. The passengers land. Colonel Brother- 
toft and family ! Welcome, chivalric gentleman, 
to this raw country ! You and your class are 
needed here. 

And now disembark a great company of 
Lincolnshire men, old tenants or old soldiers of 
the Colonel’s. Their names are thorough Lin- 
colnshire. Here come Wrangles, Swinesheads, 
Timberlands, Mumbys, Bilsbys, Hogsthorpes, 
Swillingores, and Galsworthys, old and young, 
men and women. 

These land, and stare about forlornly, after 
the manner of emigrants. They sit on their 
boxes, and wish they were well back in the old 
country. They see the town gallows, an emi- 
nent object on the beach, and are taught that 
where man goes, crime goes also. A frowzy 
Indian paddles ashore with clams to sell ; at 


14 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


this vision, their dismayed scalps tremble on 
their sinciputs. A sly Dutchman, the fatter pro- 
totype of to-day’s emigrant runner, stands before 
them and says, seductively, “ Bier, Schnapps ! ” 
They shake their heads firmly, and respond. 
“ Nix ! ” 

Colonel Brothertoft was received with due dis- 
tinction by Governor Nicolls and Mayor Willet. 
Old Peter Stuyvesant was almost consoled that 
Hollanders were sent to their Bouweries to smoke 
and grow stolid, if such men as this new-comer 
were to succeed them in power. 

The Colonel explored that “ great brave river ” 
which Connecticut Winthrop had celebrated in 
his letter. Its beautiful valley was “ all before 
him where to choose.” Dutch land-patents were 
plenteous in market as villa sites after a modern 
panic. Crown grants were to be had from the 
new proprietary, almost for the asking. 

The lord of old Brothertoft Manor selected his 
square leagues for the new Manor of Brothertoft 
at the upper end of Westchester County, border- 
ing upon the Highlands of the Hudson. A few 
pioneer Dutchmen — De Witts, Van Warts, and 
Canady s — were already colonized there. His 
Lincolnshire followers soon found their places ' 
but they came from the fens, and did not love 
the hills, and most of them in time dispersed to 
totter country. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


15 


The new proprietor’s wealth was considerable 
for America. He somewhat diminished it by 
reproducing, as well as colonial workmen could 
do, that corner of the old manor-house untouched 
by the fire. It grew up a strange exotic, this 
fine mansion, in the beautiful wilderness. The 
“ curious fabrick ” of little imported bricks, with 
its peaked turret, its quaint gables, its square 
bay-window, and grand porch, showed incongru- 
ously at first, among the stumps of a clearing. 

And there the exiled gentleman tried to live 
an exotic life. He bestowed about him the fur- 
niture of old Brothertoft Manor. He hung his 
Yandyck on the wall. He laid his presentation 
copy of Mr. John Milton’s new poem, Paradise 
Lost, on the table. 

But the vigor and dash of the Colonel’s youth 
were gone. His heart was sick for the failure 
of liberty at home. The rough commonplace of 
pioneering wearied him. He had done his last 
work in life when he uprooted from England, and 
transferred his race to flourish or wither on the 
new soil. He had formed the family character ; 
he had set the shining example. Let his son 
sustain the honor of the name ! 

The founder of Brothertoft Manor died, and a 
second Edwin, the young Astyanax of Tandy ck’s 
picture, became the Patroon. 

A third Edwin succeeded him, a fourth fol- 


16 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


lowed, and in 1736 the fifth Edwin Brothertoft 
was born. He was an only child, like each of 
his forefathers. These pages chronicle his great 
joy and his great sorrow, and how he bore him- 
self at a crisis of his individual life. Whoever 
runs may read stories like his in the broad light 
of to-day. This one withdraws itself into the 
chiaroscuro of a recent past. 

The Brothertoft fortunes did not wax on the 
new continent. Each gentle Edwin transmitted 
to his heir the Manor docked of a few more 
square miles, the mansion a little more dilapi- 
dated, the furniture more worn and broken, the 
name a little less significant in the pushing world 
of the Province. 

But each Edwin, with the sword and portrait 
of the first American, handed down the still more 
precious heirlooms of the family, — honor un- 
blemished, quick sympathies, a tender heart, a 
generous hand, refinement, courtesy, — in short, 
all the qualities of mind and person that go 4 4 to 
grace a gentleman.’’ 

It became the office of each to be the type 
gentleman of his time. 

Perhaps that was enough. Perhaps they were 
purposely isolated from other offices. Nature 
takes no small pains to turn out her type black- 
guard a complete model of ignobility, and makes 
it his exclusive business to be himself. Why 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


17 


should she not be as careful with the antago- 
nistic order? 

The Brothertofts always married women like 
themselves, the female counterparts of their mild 
manhood. Each wife blended with her husband. 
No new elements of character appeared in the 
only child. Not one of them was a father vigor- 
ous enough to found a sturdy clan with broad 
shoulders and stiff wills, ordained to success 
from the cradle. 

They never held their own in the world, much 
less took what was another’s. Each was con- 
scious of a certain latent force, and left it latent. 
They lived weakly, and died young, like fair 
exotics. They were a mild, inefficient, ineffect- 
ual, lovely, decaying race, strong in all the 
charming qualities, feeble in all the robust ones. 

And now let the procession of ancestors fade 
away into shadows; and let the last shadow 
lead forth the hero of this history in his proper 


III. 


Edwin Brothertoft, fifth of that name, had 
been two years at Oxford, toiling at the peace- 
ful tasks and dreaming the fair dreams of a 
young scholar. 

It was the fashion of that time to send young 
men of property to be educated and Anglicized 
in England. 

Bushwhackers and backwoodsmen the new 
continent trained to perfection. Most of the 
Colonists knew that two and two make four, 
and could put this and that together. But 
lore, classic or other, — heavy lore out of tomes, 
— was not to be had short of the old country. 
The Massachusetts and Connecticut mills, Har- 
vard and Yale, turned out a light article of do- 
mestic lore, creditable enough considering their 
inferior facilities for manufacture ; the heavy 
British stuff' was much preferred by those who 
couk. afford to import it. 

Edwin went to be Anglicized. Destiny meant 
that he shall not be. His life at Oxford came 
to a sharp end. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


IS 


His father wrote : “ My son, I am dying the 
early death of a Brothertoflt. I have been fool- 
ish enough to lose the last of our fortune. 
Come home and forgive me ! ” 

Beautiful Oxford ! Fair spires and towers and 
dreamy cloisters, — dusky chapels, and rich old 
halls, — green gardens, overlooked by lovely 
oriels, — high avenues of elms for quiet con- 
templation, — companionship of earnest minds, 
— a life of simple rules and struggles without 
pain, — how hard it was for the young man to 
leave all this ! 

It was mid-January, 1757, when he saw home 
again. 

A bleak prospect. The river was black ice. 
Dunderberg and the Highlands were chilly with 
snow. The beech-trees wore their dead leaves, 
in forlorn protest against the winter-time. The 
dilapidated Manor-House published the faded for- 
tunes of its tenants. 

“ Tenants at will,” so said the father to his 
son, in the parlor where Vandyck’s picture pre- 
sided. 

“ Whose will ? ” Edwin asked. 

“ Colonel Billop’s.” 

“ The name is new to me.” 

“ He is a half-pay officer and ex-army-con- 
tractor, — a hard, cruel man. He has made a 
great fortune, as such men make fortunes.” 


20 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


“ Will bis method suit me, father ? You 
Know I have mine to make.’’ 

“ Hardly. 1 am afraid you could not trade 
with the Indians, — a handful of beads for a 
beaver-skin, a ‘big drunk ’ for a bale of them. ,, 

“ I am afraid not.” 

“ I fear your conscience is too tender to let 
you put off beef that once galloped under the 
saddle to feed troops.” 

“ Yes ; and I love horses too much to encour- 
age hippophagy.” 

“ Could you look up men in desperate circum- 
stance, and take their last penny in usury ? ” 

“ Is that his method ? ” 

“ Certainly. And to crown all, could you 
seduce your friend into a promising job, make 
the trustful fool responsible for the losses, and 
when they came, supply him means to pay them, 
receiving a ruinous mortgage as security ? This 
is what he has done to me. Do any of these 
methods suit my son ? ” asked the elder, with a 
gentleman’s scorn. 

“ Meanness and avarice are new to me,” the 
junior rejoined, with a gentleman’s indignation. 
“ Can a fortune so made profit a man ? ” 

“ Billop will not enjoy it. He is dying, too. 
His heirs will take possession, as mine retire.” 

Edwin could not think thus coolly of his fa 
ther’s death. To check tears, he went on with 
his queries. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


21 


“ He has heirs, then, our unenviable suc- 
cessor ? ” 

“ One child, heir or heiress ; I do not remem- 
ber which.” 

a Heir or heiress, I hope the new tenant will 
keep the old place in order, until I can win it 
back for you, father.” 

“ It cheers me greatly, my dear son,” said the 
father, with a smile on his worn, desponding face, 
“ to find that you are not crushed by my avowal 
of poverty.” 

“ The thought of work exhilarates me,” the 
younger proudly returned. 

“ We Brotliertofts have always needed the 
goad of necessity,” said the senior, in apology 
for himself and his race. 

“Now, then, necessity shall make us ac- 
quainted with success. I will win it. You 
shall share it.” 

“ In the spirit, not in the body. But we will 
not speak of that. Where will you seek your 
success, here or there?” 

He pointed to Vandyck’s group of the Parlia- 
mentary Colonel and his family. The forefather 
looked kindly down upon his descendants. Each 
of them closely resembled that mild, heroic gen- 
tleman. 

“ Here or in the land of our ancestors ? ” the 
father continued. “ Your generation has the 


22 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


choice. No other will. These dull, deboshed 
Hanoverians on the throne of England will 
crowd us to revolution, as the Stuarts did the 
mother country.” 

“ Then Westchester may need a Brothertoft, 
as Lincolnshire did,” cries Edwin, ardently. His 
face flushed, his eye kindled, it seemed as if the 
Colonel, in the vigor of youth, had stepped down 
from the canvas. 

His father was thrilled. A life could not name 
itself wasted which had passed to such a son. 

“ But let us not be visionary, my boy,” he went 
on more quietly, and with weak doubts of the 
wisdom of enthusiasm. “ England offers a bril- 
liant career to one of your figure, your manners, 
and your talents. Our friends there do not for- 
get us, as you know, for all our century of rusti- 
cation here. When I am gone, and the Manor 
is gone, you will have not one single tie of prop- 
erty or person in America.” 

“ I love England,” said Edwin, “ I love Ox- 
ford ; the history, the romance, and the hope of 
England are all packed into that grand old 
casket of learning ; but ” — and he turned to- 
wards the portrait — “ the Colonel embarked us 
on the continent. He would frown if we gave 
up the great ship and took to the little pinnace 
again.” 

Clearly the young gentlemen was not Angli- 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


23 


cized. He went on gayly to say, “ that li4 knew 
the big ship was freighted with pine lumber, 
and manned by Indians, while the pinnace was 
crammed with jewels, and had a king to steer 
and peers to pull the halyards ; but still he was 
of a continent, Continental in all his ideas and 
fancies, and could not condescend to be an 
Islander.” 

Then the gentlemen continued to discuss his 
decision in a lively tone, and to scheme pleas- 
antly for the future. They knew that gravity 
would bring them straightway to sadness. 

Sadness must come. Both perceived that this 
meeting was the first in a series of farewells. 

Daily interviews of farewell slowly led the 
father and the son to their hour of final parting. 

How tenderly this dear paternal and filial love 
deepened in those flying weeks of winter. The 
dying man felt his earthly being sweetly com- 
pleted by his son’s affection. His had been a 
somewhat lonely life. The robust manners of 
his compeers among the Patroons had repelled 
him. The early deatli of his wife had depressed 
and isolated him. No great crisis had happened 
to arouse and nerve the decaying gentleman. 

“ Perhaps,” he said, “ I should not have ac- 
cepted a merely negative life, if your mother had 
been with me to ripen my brave purposes into 
Dtout acts. Love is the impelling force of life. 


24 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


Love wisely, my son ! lest your career be worse 
than failure, a hapless ruin and defeat. ,, 

These boding words seemed spoken with the 
clairvoyance of a dying man. They were the 
father’s last warnings. 

The first mild winds of March melted the 
snow from the old graveyard of Brothertoft Manor 
on a mount overlooking the river. There was 
but a little drift to scrape away from the vault 
door when they came to lay Edwin Brother- 
toft, fourth of that name, by the side of his an- 
cestors. 


IV. 


Four great Patroons came to honor their peer’s 
funeral. 

These were Van Cortlandt, Phillipse with his 
son-in-law Beverley Robinson, from the neigh* 
borhood, and Livingston from above the High- 
lands. 

They saw their old friend’s coffin to its damp 
shelf, and then walked up to the manor-house 
for a slice of the funeral baked meats and a liba- 
tion to the memory of the defunct. 

A black servant carved and uncorked for 
them. He had the grand air, and wielded knife 
and corkscrew with dignity. Voltaire the gen- 
tlemen called him. He seemed proud to bear 
the name of that eminent destructive. 

The guests ate their fat and lean with good 
appetite. Then they touched glasses, and sighed 
over another of their order gone. 

“ The property is all eaten up with mortgages, 
I hear,” says Phillipse, with an appropriate dole- 
ful tone. 

“ Billop swallows the whole, the infernal 
2 


26 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


usurer ! ” Van Cortlandt rejoined, looking lugu 
briously at his fellows, and then cheerfully at his 
glass. 

“ He ’s too far gone to swallow anything. The 
Devil has probably got him by this time. He 
was dying three days ago,” said Beverley Rob- 
inson. 

“ Handsome Jane Billop will be our great 
heiress,” Livingston in turn remarked. “Let 
your daughters look to their laurels, Phillipse ! ” 

“ My daughters, sir, do not enter the lists with 
such people.” 

“Come, gentlemen,” jolly Van Cortlandt in- 
terjected, “ another glass, and good luck to our 
young friend here ! I wish he would join us ; 
but I suppose the poor boy must have out his 
cry alone. What can we do for him? We 
must stand by our order.” 

“ I begin to have some faith in the order,” 
says Livingston, “ when it produces such 4 preux 
chevaliers ’ as he. What can we do for him? 
Take him for your second son-in-law, Phillipse ! 
The lovely Mary is still heart-whole, I believe. 
Our strapping young friend from Virginia, Mas- 
ter George Washington, has caracoled off, with 
a tear in his eye and a flea in his ear. Slice off 
twenty or thirty thousand acres from your 
manor, marry these young people, and set them 
up. You are too rich for our latitude and our 
era.” 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


27 


Mr. Adolphus Phillipse was a slow coach, 
The other’s banter teased him. 

“Mr. Livingston,” he began, swelling and 
growing red. 

“ Come, gentlemen,” cries Van Cortlandt, pa- 
cificator, 4 4 1 have a capital plan for young Broth- 
er toft.” 

“ What ? ” Omnes inquire. 

“ He must marry Jane Billop.” 

“Ay, he must marry Jane Billop,” Omnes 
rejoin. 

“ A glass to it ! ” cried the proposer. 

“ Glasses round ! ” the seconders echo, with 
subdued enthusiasm. 

“A beauty!” says Van Cortlandt, clinking 
with Phillipse. 

“ An heiress ! ” says Phillipse, clinking on. 

“ An orphan and only child ! ” says Robinson, 
touching glasses with his neighbor. 

“ Sweet sixteen ! ” says Livingston, blowing a 
kiss, and completing the circle of clink. 

These jolly boys, old and young, were of a 
tribe on its way to extinction, with thi painted 
sagamores of tribes before them. First came 
the red nomad, striding over the continent. In 
time followed the great Patroon, sprawling over 
all the acres of a county. Finally arrives the 
unembarrassed gentleman of our time, nomad in 
youth, settler at maturity, but bound to no spot. 


28 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


and cribbed in no habitation ; and always packed 
to move, with a brain full of wits and a pocket 
full of coupons. 

The four proprietors finished their libations 
and sent for Edwin to say good-bye. His deep 
grief made any suggestion of their marriage 
scheme an impertinence. 

Jolly Van Cortlandt longed to lay his hand 
kindly on the young man’s shoulder and say, 
“ Don’t grieve, my boy ! ‘ Omnes moriar,’ as we 

used to say at school. Come, let me tell you 
about a happy marriage we ’ve planned for 
you ! ” 

Indeed, he did arrange this little speech in 
his mind, and consulted Livingston on its de- 
livery. 

“ Let him alone ! ” said that : magister mo- 
rum.’ “ You know as much of love as of Lat- 
in. The match is clearly made in heaven. It 
will take care of itself. He shall have my good 
word with the lady, and wherever else he wants 
it. I love a gentleman.” 

“ So do I, naturally,” Van says, and he gave 
the youth honored with this fair title a cordial 
invitation to his Manor. 

The others also offered their houses, hearths, 
and hearts, sincerely ; and then mounted and 
rode off on their several prosperous and cheerful 
ways. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


29 


Meanwhile, a group of the tenants of the Ma- 
nor, standing on the sunny side of the vault, had 
been discussing the late lord and the prospects 
of his successor. As the elders talked, their 
sons and heirs played leap-frog over the tomb- 
stones, puffed out their cheeks to rival the cher- 
ubs over the compliments in doggerel on the 
slabs, and spelled through the names of extinct 
Lincolnshire families, people of slow lungs, who 
had not kept up with the fast climate. 

“ I feel as if I ’d lost a brother,” said Squire 
Jierck Dewitt, the chief personage among the 
tenantry. 

“ A fine mahn, he was ! ” pronounced Isaac 
Van Wart, through a warty nose. “But not 
spry enough, — not spry enough ! ” 

“ Anybody could cheat him,” says lean Hen- 
drecus Canady, the root and Indian doctor, who 
knew his fact by frequent personal experiments. 

“ Who ’d want to cheat a man that was every- 
body’s friend ? ” asked old Sam Galsworthy’s 
hearty voice. 

“ The boy ’s a thorough Broth ertoft, mild as a 
lamb and brave as a lion,” Dewitt continued. 
“ But I don’t like to think of his being flung on 
the world so young.” 

“ He can go down to York and set up a news- 
paper,” Yan Wart suggested. 

“ If I was him, I ’d put in for Squire Billop’s 


30 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


gal, and have easy times.” This was the root 
doctor’s plan. 

“ Well, if he ever wants a hundred pounds,” 
says Galsworthy, — “ ay, or five hundred, for 
that matter, — he ’s only got to put his hand 
into my pocket.” 

“ You can’t put your own hand in, without 
wrastlin’ a good deal,” Van Wart says. 

Sam laughed, and tried. But he was too 
paunchy. 

“ I ’m a big un,” he said ; “ but I was a little 
un when I got back from that scalpin’ trip to 
Canada, when Horse-Beef Billop was Commis- 
sary. I did n’t weigh more ’n the Injun doctor 
here ; and he, and that boy he feeds on yaller 
pills, won’t balance eight stone together. It ’s 
bad stock, is the Billop. I hope our young man 
and the Colonel’s gal won’t spark up to each 
other.” 

It was growing dusk. The dead man’s R. I. 
P. had been pronounced, and the youth’s ‘ Perge 
puer!” The tenants, members of a class pres- 
ently to become extinguished with the Patroons, 
marched off toward the smokes that signalled 
their suppers. The sons dismounted from the 
tombstones and followed. Each of them is his 
father, in boy form. They prance off, exercising 
their muscles to pull their pound, by and by, at 
the progress of this history. Old Sam Galswor- 


EDWIN BROTETERTOFT. 


81 


thy junior has hard work to keep up with the 
others, on account of his back load. He carries 
on his shoulders little Hendrecus Canady, a 
bolus-fed fellow, his father’s corpus vile to try 
nostrums upon. 

And Edwin Brothertoft sat alone in his lonely 
home, — his home no more. 

Lonely, lonely ! 

A blank by the fireside, where his father used 
to sit. A blank in the chamber, where he lay so 
many days, drifting slowly out of life. Silence 
now, — silence, which those feeble words of affec- 
tion, those mild warnings, those earnest prayers, 
those trailing whispers low from dying lips, would 
never faintly break again. No dear hand to 
press. No beloved face to watch sleeping, until 
it woke into a smile. No face, no touch, no 
voice ; only a want and an absence in that lonely 
home. 

And if, in some dreamy moment, the son 
seemed to see the dear form steal back to its 
accustomed place and the dear face appear, the 
features wore an eager, yet a disappointed look. 
So much to say, that now could never be said ! 
How the father seemed to long to recover human 
accents, and urge fresh warnings against the 
passions that harm the life and gnaw the soul, 
or to reveal some unknown error sadder than 


a sin. 


32 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


And sometimes, too, that vision of the father's 
countenance, faint against a background of twi- 
light, was tinged with another sorrow, and the 
son thought, “ He died, and never knew how 
thoroughly I loved him. Did I ever neglect 
him ? Was I ever cold or careless ? That sad 
face seems to mildly reproach me with some 
cruel slight.” 

The lonely house grew drearier and drearier. 

“ Colonel Billop,” wrote Mr. Skaats, his agent 
and executor, “ has been removed by an all- wise 
Providence. Under the present circumstances, 
Mr. Brothertoft, I do not wish to disturb you. 
But I should be glad to takS possession at the 
Manor at your earliest convenience. 

“ Respectfully, &c., 

“ Skervey Skaats.” 

Everything, even the priceless portrait of the 
Puritan Colonel, was covered by the mortgages. 
Avarice had licked them all over with its slime, 
and gaped to bolt the whole at a meal. 

Edwin did not wish to see a Skervey Skaats 
at work swallowing the family heirlooms. He 
invited Squire Dewitt to act for him with the 
new proprietor’s representative. 

New York, by that time, had become a thriving 
little town. The silt of the stream of corn that 
flowed down the Hudson was enriching it. Ed- 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT 


38 


win had brave hopes of making at least his daily 
bread there with his brains or his hands. 

While he was preparing to go, Old Sam Gals- 
worthy appeared with a bag of guineas and a fine 
white mare of the famous Lincolnshire stock, — 
such a mare as Colonel Brotliertoft used to ride, 
and Prince Rupert’s men to run from. 

“ Squire Dewitt told me you were going to 
trudge to York,” said Sam. 

“ I was,” replied the orphan ; “ my legs will 
take me there finely.” 

“ It was in my lease,” said Sam, “ to pay a 
mare-colt every year over and above my rent, 
besides a six-year-old mare for a harriet, when- 
ever the new heir came in.” 

“ Heriot, I suppose you mean, Sam.” 

“ We call ’em heriots when they ’re horses, 
and harriets when they ’re mares. Well, your 
father would n’t take the colts since twelve year. 
He said he was agin tribute, and struck the colts 
and the harriets all out of my lease. So I put 
the price of a colt aside for him every year, in 
case hard times come. There ’s twelve colts in 
this buckskin bag, and this mare is the token 
that I count you the rightful owner of my farm 
and the whole Manor. I ’ve changed her name 
to Harriet, bein’ one. She ’s a stepper, as any 
man can see with half a blinker. The dollars 
and the beast is yourn, Mister Edwin.” 

2 * 


0 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


u 


Edwin shook his head. “ You are very kind, 
Sam; but I am my father’s son, and against 
tribute in any form.” 

“ I have n’t loved your father forty year to 
see his son go afoot. Ride the mare down, any- 
how. She don’t get motion enough, now that 
I ’m too heavy for her, bein’ seventeen stone 
three pound and a quarter with my coat off.” 

Edwin’s pride melted under this loyalty. 

“I will ride her then, Sam, and thank you. 
And give me a luck-penny out of the bag.” 

“ You ’ll not take the whole ? ” pleaded Gals- 
worthy. 

No. And when the root-doctor heard this, he 
stood Hendrecus Canady junior in a receptive 
position, and dosed him with a bolus of wisdom, 
as follows: — 

“ Men is divided into three factions. Them 
that grabs their chances. Them that chucks 
away their chances. And them that lets their 
chances slide. The Brothertofts have alluz ben 
of the lettin’-slide faction. This one has jined 
the Chuckin’-Aways. He ’ll never come to 
nothin’. You just swaller that remark, my son, 
and keep a digestin’ of it, if you want to come 
to anything yourself.” 

Next morning Edwin took leave of home, and 
sorrowfully rode away. 

A harsh, loud March wind chased him, blow- 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


35 


ing Harriet Heriot’s tail between her legs. The 
omens were bad. 

But when, early the second morning, the or- 
phan crossed King’s Bridge, and trod the island 
of his new career, a Gulf Stream wind, smelling 
of bananas and sounding of palm-leaves, met 
him, breathing welcome and success. 


V. 


With youth, good looks, an English educa- 
tion, the manners and heart of a gentleman, and 
the Puritan Colonel’s sword, Edwin Brothertoft 
went to New York to open his oyster. 

“Hushed in grim repose,” the world, the 
oyster, lay with its lips tight locked against the 
brutal oyster-knives of blackguards. 

But at our young blade’s first tap on the shell 
the oyster gaped. 

How pleasant it is to a youth when his oyster 
gapes, and indolently offers him the succulent 
morsel within ! His oyster is always uneasy at 
the hinge until it is generously open for an Ed- 
win Brothertoft. He was that fine rarity, a 
thorough gentleman. 

How rare they were then, and are now ! rare 
as great poets, great painters, great seers, great 
doers. The fingers of my right hand seem too 
many when I begin to number off the thorough 
gentlemen of my own day. But were I ten 
times Briareus, did another hand sprout when- 
ever I wanted a new tally, I never could count 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


37 


the thorough blackguards among my contempo- 
raries. So much shade does it take to make 
sunshine ! 

The Colonial world gave attention when it 
heard a young Brothertoft was about to descend 
into the arena and wrestle for life. 

“ So that is he ! ” was the cry. “ How 
handsome ! how graceful ! how chivalrous ! how 
brilliant ! what a bow he makes ! his manners 
disarm every antagonist ! He will not take ad- 
vantages, they say. He is generous, and has 
visionary notions about fair play. He thinks a 
beaten foe should not be trampled on or scalped. 
He thinks enemies ought to be forgiven, and 
friends to be sustained, through thick and thin. 
Well, well! such fancies are venial errors in a 
young aristocrat.” 

The city received him as kindly as it does the 
same manner of youth now, when its population 
has increased one hundred-fold. 

The chief lawyer said, “ Come into my office 
and copy papers, at a pound a week, and in a 
year you will be a Hortensius.” 

The chief merchant said, “ If you like the 
smell of rum, codfish, and beaver-skins, take a 
place in my counting-house, at a hundred pounds 
a year, and correct the spelling of my letters. 
* promise nothing ; but I may want a partner 
\'y and by.” 


88 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT 


The Governor of the Province and Mayor of 
the town, dullards, as officials are wont to be, 
each took the young gentleman aside, and said, 
“ Here is a proclamation of mine ! Now punctuate 
it, and put in some fine writing, — about Greece 
and Rome, you know, and Magna Charta, with 
a Latin quotation or two, — and I will find you 
a fat job and plenty of pickings ! ” 

The Livingston party proposed to him to go 
to the Assembly on their votes and fight the 
De Lanceys. The De Lanceys, in turn, said, 
“ Represent us, and talk those radical Living- 
stons down.” 

Lord Loudon, Commander-in-Chief, swore that 
Brothertoft was the only gentleman he had seen 
among the dashed Provincials. “ And,” says he, 
“ you speak Iroquois and French, and all that 
sort of thing. Be my secretary, and I ’ll get you 
a commission in the army, — dashed if I don’t ! ” 
King’s College, just established, to increase the 
baker’s dozen of educated men in the Colony, 
offered the young Oxonian a professorship, Meta- 
physics, Mathematics, Languages, Belles-Lettres, 
— in fact whatever he pleased; none of the 
Trustees knew them apart. 

Indeed, the Provincial world prostrated itself 
before this fortunate youth and prayed him, — 
“ Be the representative Young American ! 
Convince our unappreciative Mother England : 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


39 


“ That we do not talk through our noses ; 

“ That our language is not lingo ; 

“ That we are not slaves of the Almighty 
Wampum ; 

“ That we can produce the Finest Gentlemen, 
as well as the Biggest Lakes, the Longest Rivers, 
the Vastest Antres, and the Widest Wildernesses 
in the World.” 

What an oyster-bed, indeed, surrounded our 
hero ! 

Alas for him! He presently found a Pearl. 


VI. 


Handsome Jane Billop wanted a husband. 

She looked into the glass, and saw Beauty. 
Into the schedules of her father’s will, and saw 
Heiress. 

She determined to throw her handkerchief, as 
soon as she could discover the right person to 
pick it up. 

“ He must belong to a great family,” thought 
the young lady. “ He must promise me to be 
a great man. He must love me to distraction. 
I hate the name of Billop ! I should look lovely 
in a wedding-dress ! ” 

She was very young, very premature, mother- 
less, the daughter and companion of a coarse 
man who had basely made a great fortune. Rich 
rogues always fancy that their children will in- 
herit only the wealth, and none of the sin. They 
are shocked when the paternal base metal crops 
out at some new vein in their progeny. Better 
not embezzle and oppress, papa, if you wish 
your daughters to be pure and your sons honest ! 
Colonel Billop did not live to know what kind 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


41 


of an heiress he and his merciless avarice had 
fathered. 

“ I must see this young Brothertoft,” Jane’s 
revery continued. u Poor fellow, I have got all 
his property ! Mr. Skaats says he is a very dis- 
tinguished young gentleman, and will be one of 
the first men of the Province. Handsome too, 
and knows lords and ladies in England! Let 
me see ! I cannot meet him anywhere so soon 
after the funeral. But he might call on me, 
about business. I feel so lonely and solemn ! 
And I do not seem to have any friends. Every- 
body courts me for my money, and yet they look 
down upon me too, because my father made his 
own fortune.” 

Colonel Billop had taken much pains to teach 
his daughter business habits, and instruct her in 
all the details of management of property. 

She sat down at her desk, and in a bold round 
hand indited the following note : — 

“Mr. Skaats, Miss Billop’s agent, begs that 
Mr. Brothertoft will do him the favor to call at 
the house in Wall Street to-morrow at eleven. 
Mr. Skaats is informed that there is a picture at 
the Manor-House which Mr. Brothertoft values, 
and he would be pleased to make an arrange- 
ment for the late owner’s retaining it.” 

Skilful Jane! to whom a Yandyck was less 
worth than its length and breadth in brocade 


42 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


She sealed this note with Colonel Bill op’s frank 
motto, “ Per omnia (JL opes,” and despatched it. 

Edwin was delighted at the prospect of re- 
covering his ancestor. It is a mighty influence 
when the portrait of a noble forefather puts its 
eye on one who wears his name, and says, by the 
language of an unchanging look : “ I was a Radi- 
cal in my day ; be thou the same in thine ! I 
turned my back upon the old tyrannies and 
heresies, and struck for the new liberties and 
beliefs ; my liberty and belief are doubtless al- 
ready tyranny and heresy to thine age ; strike 
thou for the new ! I worshipped the purest God 
of my generation, — it may be that a purer God 
is revealed to thine ; worship him with thy whole 
heart.” 

Such a monitor is priceless. Edwin was in a 
very grateful mood when he knocked at the door 
in Wall Street. 

A bank now rests upon the site of the Billop 
mansion. Ponderous, grim, granite, stand the 
two columns of its propylon. A swinging door 
squeaks “ Hail ! ” to the prosperous lender, and 
“Avaunt! ” to the borrower unindorsed. Within, 
paying tellers, old and crusty, or young and 
jaunty, stand, up to their elbows in gold, and 
smile at the offended dignity of personages not 
identified presenting checks, and in vain requir- 
ing payment. Farther back depositors are feed- 


EDWIN BKOTHERTOFT. 


43 


ing money, soft and hard, into the maw of the 
receiving teller. Behind him, book-keepers wield 
prodigious ledgers, and run up and down their 
columns, agile as the lizards of Psestum. And 
in the innermost penetralia of that temple of 
Plutus, the High-Priests, old Dons of Directors 
worth billions, sit and fancy that they brew crisis 
or credit. 

So stand things now where Edwin Brothertoft 
once stood contemplating a brass knocker. 

The door opened, and he was presently intro- 
duced into a parlor, upholstered to the upper- 
most of its era. 

But where is Mr. Skervey Skaats ? 

Instead of that mean and meagre agent, here 
is the principal, — a singularly handsome, bold, 
resolute young woman, her exuberant beauty 
epressed and her carnations toned down by 
mourning. 

Both the young people were embarrassed for a 
moment. 

He was embarrassed at this unlooked-for sub- 
stitution of a beautiful girl for an ugly reptile of 
a Skaats ; and she to find how fair a spirit she 
had conjured up. He with a sudden compunc- 
tion for the prejudice he had had against the 
unknown heir, his disinheritor ; and she with her 
instant conviction that here was the person to 
pick up her handkerchief, if he would. 


44 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


Shall the talk of these children be here re* 
peated ? It might fill a pleasant page ; but this 
history cannot deal with the details of their im- 
mature lives. It only makes ready, in this First 
Act, for the rapid business of a riper period. 

When Edwin Brothertoft left the heiress’s par- 
lor, after sixty minutes of delight, she seated 
herself at the desk where she, under the alias 
Skaats, had indited his invitation, took a fresh 
sheet of paper and a virgin quill, and wrote : — 
Jane Brothertoft. 

Then the same in backhand, with flourishes and 
without. Then she printed, in big text : — 

Lady Jane Brothertoft, of Brothertoft Hall. 

Then, with a conscious, defiant look, she carried 
her prophetic autograph to the fire, and watched 
it burn. 

Over the fireplace was a mirror, districted in- 
to three parts by gilded mullions. Above was 
perched a gilt eagle, a very rampant high-flier 
indeed. Two wreaths of onions, in the disguise 
of pomegranates, were festooned from his beak, 
and hung in alluring masses on either side of 
the frame. Quite a regiment of plump little 
cherubs, clad in gilding, tight as it could fit, 
clung in the wreaths, and sniffed at their fra- 
grance. Jane looked up and saw herself in the 
mirror. A blush deepened her somewhat carnal 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


45 


carnations. Every cherub seemed to be laugh- 
ing significantly. She made a face at the merry 
imps. As she did so, she caught sight of the re- 
flection of her father’s portrait, also regarding 
her. He was such a father as a child would 
have been quite justified in disowning and ut- 
terly cutting, if a stranger had asked, “ Who is 
that horrid person with the red face, the coarse 
jowl, the permanent leer, and cruel look ? ” An 
artist, cunning in red for the face and white for 
the ruffles, had made this personage more butch- 
erly even than Nature intended. 

Jane Billop marched up to the portrait, and 
turned it with its face toward the wall. 

“ He need n’t look at me, and tell me I am 
courting Mr. Edwin Brothertoft,” she said to 
herself. “ I know I am, and I mean to have 
him. He is lovely ; but I almost hate him. He 
makes me feel ignorant and coarse and mean. 
I don’t want to be the kind of woman he has 
been talking to with that deferential address. 
But I suppose this elegant manner is all put on, 
and he is really just like other people. He seems 
to be pretty confident of carrying the world be- 
fore him. We shall be the great people of the 
Province. Here comes the distinguished Sir Ed- 
win Brothertoft, and Lady Jane, his magnificent 
wife ! People shall not pretend to look down 
upon me any more, because my father knew how 


46 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


to make money, when fools threw it away. I ’ve 
got a Manor, too, Miss Mary Pliillipse ; and I ’ni 
handsomer than you, and not almost an old maid. 
That little chit of a Mayor Cruger’s daughter’s 
had better not try to patronize me again, nor 
Julia Peartree Smith turn up her poor pug nose. 
They ’ll all want invitations to Mrs. Brothertoft’s 
ball on going out of mourning. How they will 
envy me my Edwin ! What a beautiful bow he 
makes ! What a beautiful voice he has ! June is 
a lovely month for a wedding.” 

There is never joy in Wall Street now such as 
filled the heart of Edwin Brothertoft on that 
morning of a bygone century. The Billops of 
our time live a league up town, and plot on Mur- 
ray Hill for lovers of good family. 

Edwin had found his Pearl, — a glorious, flash- 
ing Ruby rather. Its gleam exhilarated him. 
His heart and his heels were so light, that he felt 
as if he could easily spring to the top of the spire 
of Old Trinity, which was at least a hundred feet 
lower than the crocketty structure now pointing 
the moral of Wall Street. He walked away from 
Miss Billop’s door in a maze of delight, too much 
bewildered by this sudden bliss to think of ana- 
lyzing it. 

So the young payee, whose papa’s liberal check 
for his quarter’s allowance has just been cashed, 
may climb from the bank on the site of the Billop 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


47 


house, as far as Broadway, content with the joy 
of having tin, without desiring to tinkle it. 

But at the corner Edwin’s heart began to speak 
to him with sentiments and style quite different 
from the lady’s. 

“ How she startled me with her brilliant beau- 
ty ! How kind it was to think of my valuing the 
portrait! How generously and how delicately 
she offered it ! And I had done her the injustice 
of a prejudice ! That wrong I will redress by 
thinking of her henceforth all the more highly 
and tenderly. 

“ Poor child ! a lonely orphan like myself. 
She showed in all our interview how much she 
yearned for friendship. Mine she shall have. 
My love ? yes, yes, my love ! But that must 
stay within my secret heart, and never find a 
voice until I have fully assured my future. 

“And this warm consciousness of a growing 
true love shall keep me strong and pure and 
brave. Thank God and her for this beautiful 
influence ! With all the kindness I have met, 
I was still lonely, still desponding. Now I am 
jubilant ; everything is my friend and my com- 
rade. Yes ; ring out, gay bells of Trinity ! What 
is it you are ringing ? A marriage ? Ah, happy 
husband ! happy bride ! I too am of the brother- 
hood of Love. Ring, merry bells ! Your songs 
shall be of blissful omen to my heart.” 


VII. 


Such soliloquies as those of the last chapter 
presently led to dialogue of the same character. 

The lady continued to scribble that brief ro- 
mance, or rather that title of a romance. 

“ Lady Jane Brothertoft of Brothertoft Hall.” 

The lover for his part was not a dunce. He 
soon perceived that it was his business to supply 
the situations and the talk under this title, and 
help the plot to grow. 

It grew with alarming rapidity. 

Tulips were thrusting their green thumbs 
through the ground in the Dutch gardens of the 
town when the young people first met. Tulips 
had flaunted their day and gone to green seed- 
vessels with a little ruffle at the top, and cabbage- 
roses were in young bud, when the first act of 
the drama ended. 

The lady was hardly as coy as Galatea in the 
eclogue. The lover might have been repelled 
by the large share she took in the courtship. 
But he was a true, blind, eager young lover, 
utterly absorbed in a fanaticism of affection. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


49 


Indeed, if in the tumult of his own bliss he had 
perceived that the lady was reaching beyond 
her line to beckon him, this would have seemed 
another proof that she and he were both obeying 
a Divine mandate. What young lover disputes 
his mistress’s right to share the passion ? 

“I knew it,” he said to her, by and by, — “ I 
knew from the first moment we met, that we 
must love one another. We are perfect counter- 
parts, — the halves of a perfect whole. But you 
the nobler. I felt from the moment that pleas- 
ant incident of the portrait had brought us to- 
gether, that we were to be united. I hardly 
dared give my hope words. But I knew in my 
heart that the benign powers would not let me 
love so earnestly and yet desperately.” 

These fine fervors seemed to her a little ridic- 
ulous, but very pretty. She looked in the glass, 
where the little Cupids in the onion-wreaths were 
listening, amused with Edwin’s rhapsodies, smiled 
to herself, then smiled to him, and said, “ Matches 
are made in heaven.” 

“ I told you,” he said, “ that I had erased the 
word Perhaps from my future. Now that I am 
in the way to prosperity and distinction for my- 
self, and that you smile, success offers itself to 
me dr oily. The Great Lawyer proposes to me a 
quadruple salary, and quarters the time in which 
I am to become a Hortensius. The Great Mer- 


a 


D 


50 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


chant offers me three hundred a year at once, 
a certain partnership, and promises to abandon 
codfish and go into more fragrant business.” 

They laughed merrily over this. Small wit 
wakes lovers’ glee. 

“I like you better in public life,” she said, 
“ You must be a great man immediately.” 

“ Love me, and I will be what you love.” 

“I am so glad I am rich. Such fine things 
can be done with money.” 

“I should be terribly afraid of your wealth, 
if I was not sure of success on my side. As it 
is, we have the power of a larger usefulness.” 

“ Yes,” she said, carelessly. 

He did not notice her indifferent manner, for 
he had dashed into a declamation of his high 
hopes for his country and his time. Those were 
the days when ardent youths were foreseeing 
Revolution and Independence. 

She did not seem much interested in this 
rhapsody. 

“ I love to hear you talk of England and the 
great people you knew there,” said she. “ Is 
not Brothertoft Manor-House very much like an 
English country-seat ? ” 

“Yes; but if it were well kept up, there 
would be no place so beautiful in England, — 
none so grand by nature, I mean.” 

Here followed another rhapsody from this 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT 


51 


poetic you tli on the Manor and its people, the 
river and the Highlands. 

She was proud of her lover’s eloquence, al- 
though she did not sympathize much in his 
enthusiasms. She had heard rivers talked of as 
water-power or roads for water-carriage. Moun- 
tains had been generally abused in the Billop 
establishment as ungainly squatters on good soil. 
Forests were so many feet of timber. Tenants 
were serfs, who could be squeezed to pay higher 
rents, and ought to be the slaves of their land- 
lords. 

But she listened, and felt complimented while 
Edwin painted the scenery of her new piece 
of property with glowing fancy, and while he 
made each of the tenants the hero of a pastoral 
idyl. A manor that could be so commended 
must be worth more money than she had sup- 
posed. 

“ I begin to long to see it,” she said, with real 
interest. “ And that dear old fat Sam Gals- 
worthy, who lent you the horse, I must thank 
him.” 

“ Why not go up, as soon as June is fairly 
begun ? ” 

“Mr. Skaats would not know all the pretty 
places.” 

They looked at each other an instant, — she 
bold and imperious, he still timidly tender. 


52 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT 


“ If I only dared ! ” he said. 

“ Men always dare, do they not ? ” she rejoined, 
without flinching. 

“ Are you lonely here ? ” he asked. 

“ Bitterly, except when you come. Are 
you ? ” 

“ Sadly, except when I am with you.” 

Another exchange of looks, — she a little soft- 
ened, and oppressed with the remembrance of 
the sudden, voiceless, unconscious death of her 
father, — he softened too, measuring her loss by 
his, tenderer for her than before, but not quite 
so timid. 

“Both very lonely,” he continued, with a 
smile. “Two negatives make an affirmative. 
Do you love me?” 

“ I am afraid I am already committed on that 
subject.” 

“ Why should we not put our two solitudes 
together, and make society ? ” 

“ Why not ? ” 

“Mr. Skaats would be a poor guide to Broth- 
ertoft Manor.” 

“ Mr. Skaats ! ” she said impatiently, as if she 
were dismissing a feline intruder. “We were 
not talking of him.” 

“No. I was merely thinking I could recom- 
mend you a better cicerone.” 

“Who can you possibly mean?” 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


53 


“ Myself.” 

“Ah!” 

“Brothertoft Manor would be a lovely place 
to spend a honeymoon in.” 

“I long to see it, after your description.” 

“June there is perfection.” 

“ June ! and this is May ! ” 

“Will you go there with me in June, my 
dearest love?” 

“ Yes, Edwin.” 

It was agreed among all the gossips of the 
Province — and the gossips were right — that 
this was not a mercenary match. Youth and 
beauty on both sides, what could be more nat- 
ural than love and marriage? And then the 
gossips went on to weigh the Brothertoft name 
against the Billop fortune, and to pronounce — 
for New York in those days loved blood more 
than wampum — that the pounds hardly bal- 
anced the pedigree. Both parties were in deep 
mourning. Of course there could be no great 
wedding. But all the female quality of the 
Province crowded to Trinity Church to see the 
ceremony. The little boys cheered lustily when 
the Billop coach, one of the three or four in 
town, brought its broadside to bear against the 
church porch, and, opening its door, inscribed 
with the Billop motto, “Per omnia ad opes,” 


54 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


discharged the blushing bridegroom and his 
bride. 

The beadle — for beadles have strutted on our 
soil — quelled the boys, and ushered the happy 
pair to the chancel-rail. It is pleasant to know 
that the furniture of the altar, reading-desk, and 
pulpit, which met their eyes, was crimson dam- 
ask of the “ richest and costliest kind,” and cost 
in England forty-two pounds eleven shillings and 
threepence. 

Venerable Rector Barclay read the service, 
with a slight Mohawk accent. He had been for 
some years missionary among that respectable 
tribe, — not, be it observed, the unworthy off- 
shoot known as Mohocks and colonized in Lon- 
don, — and had generally persuaded his disciples 
to cut themselves down from polygamy to biga- 
my. Reverend Samuel Auchmuty assisted the 
Rector with occasional interjections of Amen. 

The great officials of the Province could not 
quit business at this hour ; but the Patroons who 
happened to be in town mustered strong in 
honor of their order. Of pretty girls there came 
galore. Pages would fail to name them and 
their charms. There was the espiegle Miss Jay, 
of that fine old Huguenot Protestant stock, 
which still protests pertinaciously against ini- 
quity in Church and State. There was the sen- 
sible Miss Schuyler, the buxom Miss Beekman, 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


55 


high-bred Miss Yan Rensselaer, Miss Winthrop, 
faultless in toilette and temper, Miss Morris, 
wearing the imperious nose of her family, popu- 
lar Miss Stuyvesant, that Amazonian filly Miss 
Livingston, handsome Mary Phillipse with her 
determined chin, Julia Peartree Smith, nez en 
I’air as usual, and a score of others, equally 
fair, and equally worthy of a place in a fashion- 
able chronicle. 

“ Poor Edwin Brotliertoft ! ” said the Peartree 
Smith, as the young ladies filed out after the cer- 
emony. “ Did you hear that bold creature make 
her responses, ‘I Jane take thee Edwin,’ as if 
she were hailing the organ loft. These vulgar 
girls understand the policy of short engagements. 
They don’t wish to be found out. But company 
manners will not last forever. Poor Mr. Brother- 
toft ! why could he not find a mature woman ? ” 
(Julia had this virtue, perhaps, to an exagger- 
ated degree, and had been suspected of designs 
upon the bridegroom.) “ Girls as young as she 
is have had no chance to correct their ideal. 
She will correct it at his expense. She will pres- 
ently find out he is not perfect, and then will 
fancy some other man would have suited her bet- 
ter. Women should have a few years of flirta- 
tion before they settle in life. These pantalette 
marriages never turn out well. An engagement 
of a few weeks to that purse-proud baby, her 


66 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


father’s daughter ! Poor Edwin Brothertoft ! 
He will come to disappointment and grief.” 

With this, Miss Julia, striving to look Cassan- 
dra, marches off the stage. 

But Edwin Brothertoft had no misgivings. If 
he had fancied any fault of temper in his be- 
trothed, or perceived any divergence in principle, 
he had said to himself, “ My faithful love shall 
gently name the fault, or point the error, and 
her love shall faithfully correct them.” 

The Billop coach rumbled away on its little 
journey down Wall Street. Parson Barclay 
bagged his neat fee and glowed with good wishes. 
The world buzzed admiration. The little boys 
huzzaed. The bell-ringer tugged heartily at the 
bell-rope. And at every tug of his, down on the 
noisy earth, the musical bells, up in the serene 
air, responded, “ Go, happy pair ! All bliss, no 
bale ! All bliss, no bale ! ” 

The rumble of the “ leathern conveniency,” 
the applause of Young New York, and the 
jubilation of the bells were so loud, that Edwin 
was forced to lean very close to his wife’s cheek 
while he whispered : — 

“ We were alone, and God has given us each 
a beloved companion. We are orphans; we 
shall be all in all to one another. Long, long, 
and always brightening years of thorough trust 
and love, dearer than ever was dreamed, lie 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


57 


before us. How happy we shall be in oui 
glowing hopes ! how happy in our generous am- 
bitions ! how happy in our earnest life ! Ah, 
my love ! how can I love you enough for the gift 
of this beautiful moment, for the promise of th* 
fairer time to come 1 * 


> 


VIII 


Cassandra was right. The marriage went 
wrong. 

It was the old, old, young, young story. 

But which of those old young stories? 

Ah, yes! there are so many of them. And 
yet all human tragedies belong to one Trilogy. 
There are but three kinds of wrongs in our lives. 

The wrongs a man does to his own soul or 
body, or suffers in either. 

The wrongs of man against his brother man. 

The wrongs between man and woman. 

This is one of the old young stories of the 
wrong between man and woman. 

It might be made a very long and very pain- 
ful story. Chapter after chapter might describe 
the gradual vanishing of illusions, the slight 
divergence, the widening of estrangement, the 
death of trust, the deceit on one side, the wear- 
ing misery of doubt on the other, the dragging 
march, step by step, day by day, to the final 
wrong, the halt on the hither edge, and the 
careless, the desperate, the irremediable plunge 
at last. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


59 


But the statement of the result is sad enough. 
Let all these dreary chapters be condensed into 
one! 

A fatality preceded the wrong. It was this : — 

The woman was coarse, and the man was fine. 
No gentle influences had received her in the 
facile days of childhood, and trained her nobler 
nature to the masterhood. Her eyes had been 
familiar with vulgar people and their vulgar 
ways. Her ears had heard their coarse talk. 
Her mind had narrowed to their ignoble meth- 
ods of judgment. Her heart’s desire had been 
taught to be for the cheap and mundane posses- 
sions, money, show, titles, place, notoriety ; and 
not for the priceless and immortal wages of an 
earnest life, Peace, Joy, and Love. She could 
not comprehend a great soul unless its body 
were dubbed My Lord or Sir Edwin, and wore 
some gaud of a star at the breast, or a ribbon 
at the knee. 

Poor child! She was young enough to be 
docile. But after the blind happiness of that 
honeymoon at Brothertoft Manor, the old feel- 
ing of her first interview with her lover re- 
vived and exasperated. 

“ I believe he wants to make me feel igno- 
rant and vulgar,” she thought, “ so that he 
can govern me. But he shall not. I intend 
to be mistress. I ’m sick of his meek sugges- 


60 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


tions. No sir ; my way is my way, and I mean 
to have it.” 

And so, rebuked by contact with a delicacy she 
could not understand, she resolutely coarsened 
herself, sometimes for spite, sometimes for sorry 
consolation. Her unsensitive nature trampled 
roughly on his scruples. 

“ My dear Jane,” he said to her at Brothertoft, 
“ could you not instruct Mr. Skaats to be a little 
more indulgent with the Manor tenants ? ” 

“ Mr. Skaats’s business is to get the rents, for 
us to spend.” 

“ But these people have been used to gentler 
treatment.” 

“ Yes ; they have been allowed to delay and 
shirk as they pleased. My property must not be 
wasted as yours was.” 

“ It is a hard summer for them, with this 
drought.” 

“ It is an expensive summer for us, with these 
repairs.” 

Again, when they were re-established in New 
York, other causes of dispute came up. 

“ I wish, my dear Jane,” he said, “ that you 
would be a little more civil with my patriot 
friends from Boston.” 

“ I don’t like people who talk through their 
noses.” 

“ Forgive the twang for the sake of the good 
sense.” 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


63 


“ Good sense ! It seems to me tiresome grum- 
bling. I hate the word 4 Grievance/ I despise 
the name Patriot.’ ’ 

“ Remember, my dear child, that I think with 
tb*<=e gentlemen ! ” 

44 Yes ; and you are injuring your reputation 
and your chances by it. A Brothertoft should 
be conservative, and stand by his order.” 

44 I try to be conservative of Right. I stand 
by the Order of Worth, Courage, and Loyalty to 
Freedom.” 

44 0, there you go again into your foggy meta- 
physics ! ” 

Again, he came one day, and said, with much 
concern : 44 My dear, I was distressed to know 
from Skaats that your father’s estate owned a 
third of the 4 Red Rover.’ ” 

44 Why ? ” she asked, with no concern. 

44 1 was sure you did not know, or you would 
be as much shocked as I am. She is in the 
slave-trade ! ” 

44 Well. And I have often heard my father 
call her a 4 tidy bit of property,’ and say she had 
paid for herself a dozen times.” 

He could not make her comprehend his hatred 
of this vile business, and his contempt, as a gen 
tleman, for all the base subterfuges by which 
base people tried to defend it. 

The Red Rover fortunately did not remain a 


62 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


subject of discussion. On that very trip the Ne- 
groes rose and broiled the captain and crew, — 
and served them right. Then, being used only 
to the navigation of dug-outs, they omitted to 
pump the vessel, whereupon she sunk, and the 
sharks had a festival. 

With such divergences of opinion the first 
year of this propitious marriage passed miserably 
enough. Yet there was a time when it seemed 
to the disappointed husband and the defiant wife 
that their love might revive. 

In 1758, Edwin Brothertoft, rich, aristocratic, 
and a liberal, the pride of the Colony as its fore- 
most young man, was selected as the mouthpiece 
of a commission to present at home a petition 
and remonstrance. Such papers were flying 
freely across the water at that time. Reams of 
paper must be fired before the time comes for 
firing lead. 

So to England went the envoy with his gor- 
geous wife. They were received with much 
distinction, as worthy young Americans from 
Benicia and elsewhere still are. 

“ Huzzay ! ” was the rapturous acclaim. “ They 
do not talk through rebel noses ! ” 

“ Huzzay ! It is English they speak, not 
Wigwamee ! ” 

“ Huzzay ! The squaw is as beautiful as our 
Fairest, and painted red and white by cunning 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


Nature, not daubed with ochres. Huzzay! the 
young sagamore is an Adonis. He beats Ches- 
terfield at a bow and Selwyn at a mot” 

Mrs. Brothertoft grew proud of her husband, 
and grateful to him that he had chastened her 
Billop manners. 

What a brilliant visit that was ! 

All the liberal statesmen — Pitt, Henry Fox, 
Conway, mellifluous Murray — were glad to do 
the young American honor. 

Rugged Dr. Sam Johnson belabored him with 
sesquipedalian words, but in a friendly way and 
without bullying. He could be a good old boy, 
if he pleased, with good young ones. 

Young Mr. Burke was gratified that his friend 
from a sublime and beautiful hemisphere appre- 
ciated the new treatise on the Sublime and Beau- 
tiful. 

Young Mr. Joshua Reynolds was flattered that 
the distinguished stranger consented to sit to 
him, and in return tried to flatter the portrait. 

Young Dr. Oliver Goldsmith, a poor Bohe- 
mian, smattered in music and medicine, came 
to inquire whether a clever man, out of place, 
could find his niche in America. 

Mr. Garrick, playing Ranger, quite lost his self- 
possession when Mrs. Brothertoft first brought 
her flashing black eyes and glowing cheeks into 
the theatre, and only recovered when the audi- 


64 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


ence perceived the emotion and cheered it and 
the lady together. 

That great dilettante, Mr. Horace Walpole, 
made the pair a charming dSjeuner at Straw- 
berry Hill, upon which occasion he read aloud, 
with much cadence, — as dilettante gentlemen 
continue to do in our own time, — his friend Mr. 
Gray’s elaborate Elegy in a Country Churchyard, 
just printed. After this literary treat, Mr. Hor- 
ace said : “ Tell me something about that clever 
young aide-de-camp, Washington, who got Iro- 
quois Braddock the privilege of dying in his 
scalp. A brave fellow that! an honor to you! 
country, sir.” Mr. George Selwyn, the wit, was 
also a guest. He looked maliciously out of his 
“ demure eyes,” and said : “ You forget, Horry, 
that you used to name Major Washington ‘ a fan- 
faron,’ and laugh at him for calling the whiz 
of cannon-balls ‘ a delightful sound.’ ” Where- 
upon the host, a little abashed, laughed, and 
said : “ I wish such 6 fanfarons ’ were more 
plenty in the army.” And the sparkling gossip 
did not relate how he had put this nickname 
in black and white in a letter to Sir Horace 
Mann, in whose correspondence it may still be 
read, with abundance of other second-hand jokes. 

What a gay visit it was of the young pair in 
that brilliant moment of England ! 

While Brothertoft, in the intervals of urging 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


65 


his Petition and Remonstrance, discussed all the 
sublime and beautiful things that are dreamt of 
in philosophy with Mr. Burke, — while he talked 
Art with Mr. Reynolds, poetry with Dr. Gold- 
smith, and de omnibus rebus with Dr. Johnson, 
— his wife was holding a little court of her own. 

She was a new sensation, with her bold, wilful 
beauty and her imperious Americanism. A new 
sensation, and quite annihilated all the tradi- 
tions of Mary Wortley Montagu and her Turkish 
dress, when she appeared at a masquerade as 
Pocahontas, in a fringed and quilled buckskin 
robe, moccasons, and otter coronet with an eagle’s 
plume. 

“ I suppose that ’s a scalping-knife she ’s play- 
ing with,” said the Duke. of Gurgoyle, inspect- 
ing her in this attire. “ And, by George, she 
looks as if she could use it.” 

Then the ugly old monster, and the other 
blase men, surrounded the Colonial beauty, and 
fooled her with flattery. 

Was she spoilt by this adulation ? 

“ Dear Edwin,” she schemed, in a little visit 
they made to Lincolnshire and the ruins of old 
Brothertoft Manor, “ let us buy back this estate 
and never return to that raw America. You 
can go into Parliament, make one or two of your 
beautiful speeches, and presently be a Peer, with 
stars and garters.” 


66 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


“ Does a garter straighten a leg ? does a star 
ennoble a heart ? Listen, my love, do you not 
hear Great Tom of Lincoln warning me, as he 
long ago warned my ancestor, 6 Go home again, 
Brothertoft, Liberty is in danger ’ ? ” 

“ No,” she rejoined, petulantly ; “ a loyal bell 
would not utter such treasonable notes. This 
is what I hear : ‘ Come again, Brothertoft, Lord 
of the old Manor ! ’ Liberty ! Liberty ! You 
tire me with your idle fancies. Why will you 
throw away name and fame ? ” 

“ I will try to gain them, since they are pre- 
cious to you ; but they must come in the way 
of duty.” 

There was peril in these ambitions of hers ; 
but the visionary husband thought, “ How can I 
wonder that her head is a little turned with 
adulation ? She merits it all, my beautiful wife ! 
But she will presently get the court glare out 
of her eyes. When our child is born, a pledge 
of our restored affection, she will recognize 
deeper and tenderer duties.” 

The Brothertoft embassy was a social success, 
but a political failure. 

The lewd old dolt of a King sulkily pooh-pooh- 
ed Remonstrance and Petition. 

“You ought to have redress,” says Pitt, “ but 
I am hardly warm in my seat of Prime Minister. 
I can only be a tacit friend at present.” 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFf. 


6 ? 


“ Go home and wait,” says Ben Franklin, a 
shrewd old Boston-boy, — fond of tricks with kites, 
keys, and kerchiefs, — who was at that time resi- 
dent in London. “Wait awhile ! I have not 
been fingering thunderbolts so long, without 
learning that people may pooh-pooh at the clouds, 
and say the flashes are only heat-lightning ; but 
by and by they ’ll be calling upon the cellars to 
take ’em in, and the feather-beds to cover ’em.” 

The Brothertofts went home. England forgot 
them, and relapsed into its belief, — 

That on the new continent the English colo- 
nists could not remain even half-civilized Yen- 
geese, but sank to absolute Yankees, — 

Whose bows were contortions, and smiles 
grimaces ; 

Whose language was a nasal whoop of Anglo- 
Iroquois ; 

And who needed to be bolused with Stamp 
Acts and drenched with Tea Duties, while Tom 
Gage and Jack Burgoyne pried open their teeth 
with the sword. 

There was one visible, tangible, ponderable re- 
sult of the Brothertofts’ visit to England. 

Lucy Brothertoft, an only child, was born, — 
a token of love revived, — alas! a monument of 
love revived to die and be dismissed among 
memories. 

If the wife had been a true wife, how sweetly 


68 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


her affection for her husband would have re- 
doubled for him in his new relation of father. 
Here was a cradle for rendezvous. Why not clasp 
hands and renew vows across it ? This smiling, 
sinless child, — why could it not recall to either 
parent’s face a smile of trust and love ? 

But this bliss was not to be. 

Ring sadly, bells of Trinity ! It is the chris- 
tening day. Alas ! the chimes that welcome the 
daughter to the bosom of the church are toll- 
ing the knell of love in the household where 
she will grow to womanhood. 

The harmonious interlude ended. The old, 
old story went on. Slowly, slowly, slowly, the 
wife grew to hate her husband. Sadly, sadly, 
sadly, he learned to only pity her. 

The visit to England had only more com- 
pletely enamored her of worldliness. She 
missed the adulation of My Lord and Sir Harry. 
Her husband’s love and approval ceased to be 
sufficient for her. And when this is said, all is 
said. 

It was a refinement of cruelty in the torture 
days to bind a living man to a corpse. Dead 
lips on living lips. Lumpish heart at throbbing 
heart. Glazed eyes so close that their stare 
could be felt, not seen, by eyes set in horror. 
Death grappling, and Life wrestling itself to 
Death. Have we never seen this, now that the 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


69 


days of bodily torture are over ? Have we seen 
no delicate spirit of a woman quelled by the em- 
braces of a brute ? Have we seen no high and 
gentle-hearted man bound to a coarse, base wife, 
and slain by that body of death ? 

The world, the oyster, sulked when the young 
man it had so generously gaped for quite lost his 
appetite for fat things. 

“ Shame ! ” said the indignant Province. 
“ We had unanimously voted Edwin Brothertoft 
our representative gentleman. He was ardent 
and visionary, and we forgave him. He was 
mellifluous, grammatical, ornamental, and we 
petted him. We were a little plebeian, and 
needed an utterly brave young aristocrat to 
carry our oriflamme, and we thrust the staff 
into his hand. Shame, Brothertoft! you have 
gulled us. It is the old story, — premature blos- 
som, premature decay. The hare sleeps. The 
tortoise swallows the prize! To the front, ye 
plodders, slow, but sure ! And you, broken- 
down Brothertoft, retire to the back streets ! 
wear the old clothes ! and thank your stars, if we 
consent to pay you even a starvation salary ! ” 

“ Poor Jane Billop ! ” said Julia Peartree 
Smith, who was now very intimate with that 
lady. “ I always said it would be so. I knew 
she would come to disappointment and grief. 
The Brothertofts were always weak as water. 


70 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


And this mercenary fellow hurried her into a 
marriage, a mere child, after an engagement of 
a few weeks. No wonder she despises him. I 
do, heartily. What lovely lace this is. I won- 
der if she couldn’t give me another yard! 
Heigh ho ! Nobody smuggles for me!” 

Brother patriots, too, had their opinion on 
the subject of Brotliertoft’s withdrawal into ob- 
scurity. 

“These delicate, poetical natures,” said our 
old friend, Patroon Livingston, “ feel very 
keenly the blight of political enslavement. 
Well may a leader droop, when his comrades 
skulk ! I tell you, gentlemen, that it is our 
non-committal policy which has disheartened 
our friend. When we dare to stand by him, 
and say, ‘ Liberty or death ! ’ the man will be 
a man again, — yes, a better man than the best 
of us. I long to see his eye kindle, and hear his 
voice ring again. I love a gentleman, when he 
is man enough to be free.” 

But whoever could have looked into this 
weary heart would have read there a sadder 
story than premature decay, a deadlier blight 
than political enslavement, a crueller and closer 
wrong than the desertion of comrades. 

Wrong ! it had come to that, — the final 
wrong between man and woman, — the catas- 
trophe of the first act of the old, old tragedy. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


71 


These pages do not tolerate the details of 
this bitter wrong. 

The mere facts of guilt are of little value 
except to the gossip and the tipstaff; but how 
the wounded and the wounding soul bear them- 
selves after the crime, that is one of the needful 
lessons of life. 


IX. 


Red. 

That was the color now master in Mrs. Broth- 
ertofVs houses, town and country. 

Supercilious officers, in red coats, who were 
addressed as General or My Lord, insolent of- 
ficers, in red coats, liight Colonel or Sir Har- 
ry, arranged their laced cravats at the mirror 
under the rampant eagle, or lounged on the 
sofas. 

There were plenty of such personages now in 
New York, and Mrs. Brothertoft’s house made 
them all welcome. Regimental talk, the dullest 
and thinnest of all the shop talks talked among 
men, was the staple of conversation over her 
Madeira at her dinners, grand, or en fainille, bien 
entendu. 

Now and then a nasal patriot from Down East, 
or a patriot Thee-and-Thouer from Philadelphia, 
knocked at the door and inquired for Mr. Broth- 
ertoft. 

“ Out of town, Sir,” was the reply of the wiggy 
uegro. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


73 


“ When do you expect him back ? ” 

“ Don’t know, Sir,” the porter replied, rather 
sadly. 

The patriot retired, and the negro closed the 
door with a sigh, — the pompous sigh of an old 
family servant. 

“ No,” muttered he, “ I don’t know when he’ll 
be back. He never would come back if he knew 
about the goings on in this house. He never 
would anyhow, if it wasn’t to look after Miss 
Lucy. There she comes down stairs, I ’ll ask 
her. Miss Lucy ! ” 

A gentle, graceful little girl, of the Brother- 
toft type, turned at the foot of the stairs and 
answered, “ What, Yoltaire ? ” 

“Do you know, Miss, where your father is, 
now ? ” 

“ No,” she replied, half sadly, half coldly. 

“A gentleman was just asking when he would 
be back.” 

“ He does not inform us of his motions.” 

She seemed to shrink from the subject, as if 
there were guilt in touching it. 

Yoltaire looked forlornly after her, as she 
passed into the parlor. Then he shook his fist 
indignantly at a great palmated pair of moose- 
horns, mounted as a hat-stand in the hall. On 
the right-brow antler hung a military cocked 

4 


74 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


hat. On the left bezantler, a pert little fatigue 
cap was suspended. 

“ It ’s too bad,” Yoltaire began. 

Black babble has become rather a bore in liter- 
ature. Yoltaire, therefore, will try not to talk 
Tombigbee. 

“ It ’s too bad,” muttered the negro, in futile 
protest, “ to see them fellows hanging up their 
hats here, and the real master — the real gentle- 
man — shamed out of house and home. 

“ It ’s too bad,” he continued despondingly, 
“ to see Miss Lucy, as sweet a little lady as ever 
stepped, taught to think her father a good-for- 
nothing spendthrift and idler, if not worse. The 
madam will never let her see him alone. The 
poor child is one of the kind that believes what is 
told to ’em. No wonder she is solemn as Sunday 
all the time. I don’t see anything to be done. 
But I ’ll go down and ask Sappho.” 

Again he shook his fist at those enormous 
excrescences from the brow of a bold Cervus 
alces , — a moose that once walked the High- 
lands near Brothertoft Manor. Then he sham- 
bled down stairs to his wife Sappho’s boudoir, 
the kitchen. 

Blacker than Sappho of Lesbos ever looked 
when Phaon cried, Avaunt ! was this namesake 
of the female Sam Patch of Leucadia. But 
through her eyes and mouth good-liumor shone, 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


75 


as the jolly fire shines through the chinks of the 
black furnace-doors under a boiler. 

“ Things goes wrong in this house, all but 
your cooking department, Sappho, and my but- 
ler department,” says Yoltaire. “ The master is 
shamed away, and is off properogating liberty. 
The mistress, — I suppose we ’d better not say 
nothing about her.” 

Sappho shook her head, and stirred her soup. 

“ But Miss Lucy is going to be a big girl pretty 
soon. Her mother is making her mistrust her 
father. She ’s got no friends. What will come 
of her? ” 

Sappho tasted her soup. It was savory. 

“ Yoltaire,” says she, striving to talk a dialect 
worthy of her name, and hitting half-way to 
English, “ Yoltaire, Faith is what you wants. 
You is not got the Faith of a free colored gen- 
tleman, member of one of de oldest families in 
all Westchester. You is got no more Faith than 
them Mumbo Jumbo Billop niggers what immi- 
grated in the Red Rover. You jess let de Lord 
look after Miss Lucy. She is one after de Lord’s 
own heart.” 

“But the Devil has put his huf into this 
house.” 

“ If you was a cook, you ’d have more Faith. 
Jest you taste that soup now. How is it ? ” 

“ Prime,” says Yoltaire, blowing and sipping. 


76 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. * 


“You taste it, Plato,” she repeated, dipping 
another ladle from the pot, and offering to her 
son, heir of his father’s philosophic dignity, and 
hh mother’s Socratic visage. “ How is it ? ” 

“ Prime ! ” says this second connoisseur. 

“Now, what you guess is the most important- 
est thing in this soup ? ” 

“ Conundrums is vulgar, particular for ladies,” 
says Voltaire, loftily. 

“ That ’s because you can’t guess.” 

“ Poh ! it ’s easy enough,” says he. “ Beef! ” 

“ No. You guess, Plato.” 

“ B’ilin’ water,” cries he, sure of his solution. 

Sappho shook her head. 

“ Turkey carcasses,” propounded Voltaire, with 
excitement. 

“ Onions,” offered Plato, with eagerness. 

“ No,” says Sappho, “ it ’s Faith ! ” 

“ I was jest a goin’ to say Faith,” Plato un- 
blushingly asserted. 

“You see,” Sappho explained, “ I takes beef, 
— bery well ! and b’ilin’ water, — bery well ! and 
turkey carcasses, and onions, and heaps of things, 
and puts ’em into a pot on the fire. Then I has 
Faith.” 

“Poh!” cried Voltaire. “ ’T was n’t a fair 
conundrum ; you has the Faith into yourself.” 

“ Then I takes Faith,” repeated Sappho, with- 
cut noticing this interruption, “ Faith, that these 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


77 


*gredients which is not soup is cornin’ soup in 
de Lord’s time, an dey alluz comes soup.” 

“ And the primest kind ! ” Plato interjected, 
authoritatively. 

“ So,” continued Sappho, improving the les- 
son, “ soup and roast geese, and pies and pan- 
cakes risin’ over night, has taught me disyer 
proverb, 6 Wait, and things comes out right at 
last.’ So it ’s boun’ to be with Miss Lucy.” 

This logic convinced the two namesakes of 
philosophers, and they carried up dinner, in a 
perplexed but patient mood. 

My Lord and Sir Harry were both dining there 
that day. 

“ Do you know what has become of our host- 
ess’s husband ? ” asked My Lord, as they lounged 
off after dinner. 

“ He ’s going about the Provinces, stirring up 
rebellion after a feeble fashion,” said Sir Harry. 
“I believe that fellow Gaine pays him a few 
shillings a week for editing his 6 Mercury,’ when 
he is in New York.” 

“ If I was Governor Tryon I ’d have that dirty 
sheet stopped. He ’s a new broom. He ought 
to make a clean sweep of all these Freedom 
Shriekers.” 

Such then was the condition of things in the 
Brothertoft family at the beginning of Tryon’s 
administration. 


78 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


Edwin Brotliertoft had not become an absolute 
stranger to his old home, for two reasons. He 
pitied his guilty wife. He loved his innocent 
daughter. He could not quite give up the hope 
that his wife might need his pardon, by and by, 
when sin soured to her taste. He must never 
totally abandon his child to the debasing influ- 
ences about her, though he had no power or in- 
fluence to rescue her now, — that disheartened 
and broken-down man, contemned by the world 
as a purposeless idler. 

Matters had not reached this pass in one year 
nor until many years, — dreary to imagine, far 
too dreary to describe. 

Who shall enumerate the daily miseries in that 
hapless house ? Who shall count the cruel little 
scratches of the poniard, with which the wife 
practised for her final stab ? What Recording 
Angel kept tally of the method she took to mur- 
der his peace, that he might know it was mur- 
dered, dead, dead, dead, and not exasperate he2 
with his patient hope that it might recover ? 

Her fortune gave her one weapon, — a savage 
one in those vulgar hands. She used this power 
insolently, as baser spirits may. She would have 
been happy to believe, what she pretended, that 
her husband married her for money. Often she 
told him so. Often she reproached him with her 
9wn disappointment. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


T9 


“ Did 1 marry you,” she would say, “ to be in« 
efficient and obscure, — a mere nobody in the 
world? You were to be a great man, — that 
was your part of the bargain. You knew I was 
ambitious. I had a right to be. You have had 
everything to give you success, — everything ! ” 

“ Not quite everything,” he said sadly. “ Not 
Love ! ” 

Ah miserable woman! as she grew practised 
in deceit and wrong, she hated her husband more 
and more. 

She maddened herself against him. She 
blamed him as the cause of her evil choices. 

“ It is his fault, not mine,” she said to herself. 
“ He ought to have controlled me, and then I 
should not have done what makes me ashamed 
to face his puny face. He ought to have said, 
‘You shall and you shall not,’ instead of his 
feeble, ‘ Is this wise, Jane ? Is this delicate ? Is 
this according to your nobler nature ? ’ I don’t 
like to be pleaded with. A despot was what I 
needed. If he was half a man, he would take a 
whip to me, — yes, beat me, and kick all my 
friends out of doors and be master in the house. 
That I could understand.” 

She maddened herself against him more and 
more. She so yielded to an insolent hate, that 
she was no better than a mad woman while he 
was by to enrage her with his patient, crushed. 


80 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


and yet always courteous demeanor, — a sorrow 
ful shadow of the ardent, chivalric Edwin Broth- 
ertoft of yore. 

“ Why not kill the craven-spirited wretch ? ” 
she thought, “ or have him killed ? He would 
be better dead, than living and scorned ? Once 
rid of him, and I could take my beauty and my 
wealth to England, and be a grand lady after all. 
Lady Brothertoft of Brothertoft Hall! that was 
what I had a right to expect. He could have 
given it to me. The fool was capable enough. 
Everybody said he might be what he pleased. 
Why could he not love real things? a splendid 
house, plenty of slaves, a name, a title, instead 
of this ridiculous dream of Liberty. Liberty ! if 
he and his weak-minded friends only dared strike 
a blow, — if they only would rebel, — he might be 
got rid of. Then I should be free. Ah, I will 
have my triumphs yet ! Kings have loved wo- 
men not half so handsome ! ” 

And witli red, unblushing cheeks she looked 
at herself in the mirror, and hated that obstruc- 
tion, her husband, more and more. 

A mad hate, which she would gladly have 
gratified with murder. The air often seemed to 
her full of Furies, scourging her on to do the 
deed. Furies flitted before her, proffering pal- 
pable weapons, — weapons always of strange and 
antique fashion, such as she had seen and ban- 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


81 


died in old museums in England. She re- 
membered now with what pleasure she used to 
play with them, while she listened quietly to 
some sinister legend, and knew how the stain 
came on the blade. 

“ Kill him ! ” the Furies cried to her. It was 
a sound like the faint, distant cry one hears in 
a benighted forest, and wonders whether the 
creature be beast or man. 

“ Not yet,” she answered, aloud, to this hail 
in the far background of her purposes. 

The postponement seemed to imply a promise, 
and she perceived the circle of shadowy Furies 
draw a little step nearer, and shout to each 
other in triumph, “ 4 Not yet ’ ; she says, 4 Not 
yet.’ ” 

So her hate grew more and more akin to a 
madness, as every cruel or base passion, even 
the silliest and most trifling, will, if fondled. 

She found, by and by, that the cruellest stab 
she could give to the man she had wronged was 
through his daughter. 

44 Lucy is all Brothertoft, and no Billop,” Julia 
Peartree Smith often said. 44 It ’s all wrong ; she 
ought to take after her strong parent, not her 
weak one.” 

There was a kind of strength incomprehensible 
to the old tabby. Nor did she know the law of 
the transmission of spiritual traits, — with what 


82 


EDWIN BROTHKRTOFT. 


fine subtlety they get themselves propagated, and 
prevail over coarser and cruder forces. 

Lucy was all Brothertoft. In her early days 
she did not show one atom of the maternal char- 
acter. That made the mother’s influence more 
commanding. The child loved the mother with 
a modification of the same passion that the father 
had felt for a nature he deemed his nobler coun- 
terpart. The father was so much like his daugh- 
ter that she could not comprehend him, until 
she was ripe enough to comprehend herself. 
Crude contrasts are earliest perceived, earliest 
appreciated, and earliest admired, in character 
as in art. 

So without any resistance Mrs. Brothertoft 
wielded Lucy. She let the child love her and 
confide in her exclusively. But she hated he" 
She hated Edwin Brothertoft’s daughter. There 
was the girl growing more and more like him, 
day by day. There were the father’s smile, the 
father’s manner, the father’s voice, even the 
father’s very expressions of endearment, forever 
reproaching the mother with old memories re- 
vived. 

Ah this miserable woman ! She learnt to fear 
her daughter, — to dread the inevitable day when 
that pure nature would recoil from hers. She 
vatched the gentle face covertly. When would 
that look of jiI most lover-like admiration depart ? 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


83 


When would disgust be visible ? When would 
the mild hazel eyes perceive that the bold black 
eyes could not meet them ? When would the 
fair cheeks burn with an agonizing blush of 
shame ? 

“ When will the girl dare to pity me, as that 
poor wretch her father does ? ” she thought. 

This gentle, yielding, timid creature became 
her mother’s angel of vengeance. Mrs. Brother- 
toft never met her after an hour of separation 
without a wild emotion of terror. 

“ Has she discovered ? Does she know what 
I am? Did some tattler whisper it to her in 
the street ? The winds are always uttering a 
name to me. Has she heard it, too ? Did she 
dream last night ? Has her dream told her what 
her mother is ? If she kisses me, I am safe.” 

Yes. Sweet Lucy always had the same eager 
caress ready. She so overflowed with love to 
those she trusted, that she was content with her 
own emotion, and did not measure the tempera- 
ture of the answering caress. 

All this miserable mother! as false to mater- 
nal as to marital love. It became her task to 
poison the daughter against her father. If these 
two should ever understand each other, if there 
should ever be one little whisper of confidence 
between them, if she should ever have to face 
the thought of their contempt, — what then ? 


84 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT 


Agony would not let her think, “ What then ? ” 
She must prevent the understanding, make the 
confidence impossible ; it must be her business 
to educate and aim the contempt. 

How perse veringly, craftily, ably she accom- 
plished this ! How slowly she instilled into her 
child’s mind the cumulative poison of distrust. 
Often the innocent lips shrank from the bitter 
potion. One day she might reject it. But the 
next, there was the skilful poisoner, — her 
mother. 

“ You cannot doubt me, Lucy,” the woman 
would say, looking aside as she commended her 
chalice. “If it distresses you to hear such 
things of your father, how much bitterer must 
it be for me to say them ! ” 

These pages again refuse to tolerate the de- 
tails of this second crime. Let that too pass 
behind the curtain. 

Closed doors then ! for the mother is at last 
saying that her husband has grown baser and 
baser, — so utterly lost to all sense of honor that 
she must exclude him from her house, and that 
her daughter must herself tell him that she will 
never see him again. 

Closed doors, while the innocent girl tiings 
herself into the guilty woman’s arms, and, weep- 
ing, promises to obey. 

Closed doors, and only God to see and listen, 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


85 


while Lucy, alone in her chamber, prays forgive- 
ness for her father, and pity for his desolate 
and heart- weary child. 

Closed doors upon the picture of this fair girl, 
worn out with agony and asleep. And walking 
through her dreams that grisly spectre Sin, who 
haunts and harms the nights and days of those 
who repel, hardly less cruelly than he haunts 
and harms them who embrace him. 

It was a tearful April morning of 1775, when 
this final interview took place. 

“ Let me understand this,” said Edwin Broth- 
ertoft, with the calmness of a practised sufferer. 
44 My daughter has made up her mind never to 
see me again ? ” 

44 She has,” said Mrs. Brothertoft. 

With what quiet, cruel exultation she spoke 
these words ! Exultation mixed with terror for 
the thought, “ I have schooled the girl. But she 
may still rebel. She may spring to him, and 
throw herself into his arms, and then the two 
will turn upon me, and point with their fingers, 
and triumph.” 

44 1 cannot take my answer from you, madam,” 
he said. 

44 1 have no other answer to give,” said Lucy. 

44 None ? ” he asked again. 

44 None,” she replied. 


86 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


Her coldness was the result of utter bewilder- 
ment and exhaustion. It seemed to him irreme- 
diable hardness and coarseness of heart. 

“ She is her bad mother’s base daughter,” he 
thought. “ I will think of her no more.” 

Does this seem unnatural ? Remember how 
easily a lesser faith is slain, when the first great 
faith has perished. The person trusted with the 
whole heart proves a Lie ; then for a time all 
persons seem liars ; then for a time the deceived, 
if they are selfish, go cynical ; if they are gen- 
erous, they give their faith to great causes, 
to great ideas, and to impersonal multitudes. 
Household treachery keeps the great army of 
Reform recruited. 

“ This girl,” thought Edwin Brotliertoft, “ can- 
not be so blind as not to know why her mother 
and I are separated. And yet she chooses her, 
and discards me. I knew that the woman once 
my wife could never be my wife again. I knew 
that our lips could never meet, our hands never 
touch. But I hoped — yes, I was weak enough 
to hope — that, when sin and sorrow had taught 
us their lessons, and the day for repentance and 
pardon came, we might approach each other in 
the person of our daughter, beloved by both 
alike. I was father and my wife mother in the 
honorable days gone by. Our child might teach 
the father and the mother a different love, not of 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


8T 


the flesh, but of the spirit. This was my hope. 
I let it go. Why should I longer keep up this 
feeble struggle with these base people, who have 
ruined my life ? I have no daughter. I never 
had a wife. I forget the past. 'God forgive me 
if I abandon a duty ! God give me opportunity, 
if he wills that I ever resume it again ! ” 

As he walked up Wall Street, moodily re- 
flecting after this fashion, he heard a voice call 
him. 

“ Mr. Brothertoft ! ” 

This hail came from the nose of a hurried 
person who had just turned the corner of Smith 
— now William — Street, and was making for 
the wife’s house, when he saw the husband. 

“ Mr. Brothertoft ! ” twanged sharp after the 
retreating figure. There was an odd mixture 
of alarm and triumph in these nasal notes. 

“ Call me by some other name ! ” said the one 
addressed, turning. “ What you please, but 
never that again.” 

“ Waal ! ” says the other, speaking Bostonee, 
through a nose high Boston, “ you might n’t like 
my taste in baptism, so I’ll call you Cap’n, — 
that ’s safe. Cap’n,” he continued in a thrilling 
whisper, through that hautboy he played on, 
“ Cap’n, we’ve shed and drawed the fust blood 
fur Independence. Aperel 19 wuz the day. 
Lexington wuz wher we shed. Corncud wuz 


88 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


wher we drawed. Naow, if you’ll jest pint and 
poot fur Bosting, you ’ll pint and poot fur a lo- 
cality wher considdable phlebotomy is ter be 
expected baout these times, and wher Patriots 
is wanted jest as fast as they can pile in.” 

Clang out your alarums, bells of Trinity! 
others may need awakening. Not he who was 
named Edwin Brothertoft. He is gone already to 
fight in the old, old battle — forever old, forever 
new — of freedom against tyranny, of the new 
thoughts against the old facts. 

“ So your husband ’s on his way to get himself 
shot or hung. And a good riddance, I suppose, 
Madam B.,” said coarse Sir Harry. 

“ The beautiful widow will not cry her eyes 
out,” said My Lord with his usual sneer. 

Mrs. Brothertoft writhed a little under this 
familiarity. 

Like many another, who says, “ Deteriora se - 
quar ,” she wished to go to the bad with a stately 
step and queenly mien. That is not permitted 
by the eternal laws. All, miserable woman ! she 
was taught to feel how much the gentleman 
she had betrayed was above the coarse asso- 
ciates she had chosen. 

She missed him, now that he was gone irrevo- 
cably. 

Had there been then in her heart any relics of 
the old love? Had she cherished some vague 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


89 


purpose of repentance, some thought of tears, 
some hope of pardon? 

Had her torture of her husband been only a 
penance for herself? Was it the hate which is 
so akin to love ? Could this be a self-hatred for 
a self that has wasted the power of loving, — a 
hate that is forever wreaking vengeance for this 
sad loss upon the object the heart most longs to 
love, — the only one that can remind that heart 
of its impotency ? Had she been acting uncon- 
sciously by the laws of such a passion ? 

And this exasperating influence banished, 
would she have peaco at last? Would the 
Furies let her alone ? Would the hints of mur- 
der vanish and be still ? Would she be a free 
woman, now, to follow out her purposes ? 

Edwin Brothertoft had disappeared. Deserters 
from the rebel army could give no news of such 
a person. 

Julia Peartree Smith often suggested to her 
friend the welcome thought that he was dead. 

Mrs. Brothertoft could not believe it. Some- 
thing whispered her that there would be another 
act in the drama of her married life. 




PART n. 



I. 


Buff and Blue. 

Dear, faithful old colors ! They never appeared 
more brave and trusty than in Major Skerrett’s 
coat, — a coat of 1777. 

“ White at the seams of the blue, soiled at the 
edges of the buff,” said the Major, inspecting 
himself in a triangular bit of looking-glass. “ I 
must have a new one, if I can find a tailor who 
will take an order on the Goddess of Liberty in 
pay. Good morning, Mrs. Birdsell.” 

This salutation he gave as he passed out of the 
little house in Fishkill where he had been quar- 
tered last night. 

“ Good mornin’, Sir,” returned Mrs. Birdsell, 
rushing out of her kitchen, with a rolling-pin in 
hand, and leaving her pie-crust flat on its back, 
all dotted with dabs of butter, as an ermine cape 
is with little black tails. 

She looked after him, as he stepped out into the 
village street. Her first emotion was feminine 
admiration, — her second, feminine curiosity. 


94 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


“ What a beautiful young man ! ” she said to 
her respectable self. u Sech legs ! Sech hair, 
— jest the color of ripe chesnut burrs, — only I 
don’t like that streak of it on his upper lip. 
I ’ve olluz understood from Deacons that the 
baird of a man cum in with Adam’s fall and waz 
to be shaved off. Naow I ’d give a hul pie to 
know what Gineral Washington ’s sent him on 
here for. It’s the greatest kind of a pity he 
did n’t come a few days before. That old granny, 
Gineral Putnam, would n’t hev let Sirr Henery 
Clinton grab them forts down to the Highlands, 
if he ’d hed sech a young man as this to look 
arter him and spry him up.” 

Before he continued his walk, Major Skerrett 
paused a moment for a long hearty draught of 
new October, — new American, a finer tipple than 
old English October. 

Finer and cheaper ! In fact it was on free tap. 

No cask to bore. No spigot to turn. No 
pewter pot to fill. Major Skerrett had but to 
open his mouth and breathe. He inhaled, and 
he had swallowed Science knows how many 
quarts of that mellow golden nectar, the air of 
an American October morning. It was the per- 
fection of potables, — as much so then in 1777, 
as it is now in 1860. 

“ I have seen the lands of many men, and 
drained their taps,” soliloquized the Major, paro- 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


95 


dying the Odyssey ; “ but never, in the bottle 
or out of the bottle, tasted I such divine stuff 
as this. 0 lilies and roses, what a bouquet ! 0 
peaches and pippins, what a flavor! 0 hickory- 
nuts and chinkapins, what an aroma ! More, 
Hebe, more ! Let me swig ! — forgive the word ! 
But one drinks pints ; and I want gallons, pun- 
cheons.” 

While he is indulging in this harmless de- 
bauch, let Mrs. Birdsell’s question, “ What did 
General Washington send him on for ? ” be 
answered. 

“ Peter,” said Washington familiarly to Major 
Skerrett, his aide-de-camp, “ I have written pe- 
remptorily several times to General Putnam to 
send me reinforcements. They do not come.” 

The chief was evidently somewhat in the dumps 
there at his camp, near Pennibecker’s Mill, on 
the Perkiomy Creek, twenty miles from Phila- 
delphia, at the end of September, 177T. 

“ I suppose,” the Major suggested, “ that Put- 
nam cannot get out of his head his idle scheme 
for the recapture of New York, — that 4 suicidal 
parade,’ as Aleck Hamilton calls it.” 

“ I must have the men. Our miserable busi- 
ness of the Brandywine must be done over.” 

“ Yes ; Sir William Howe is bored enough 
in Philadelphia by this time. Everybody always 
is there. It would be only the courtesy of war 


96 


EDWIN BEOTHERTOFT. 


to challenge him out, and then beat him away 
to jollier quarters.” 

“ I do not like to challenge him unless I have 
a couple of thousand more men. You must 
take a little ride, Major, up to Old Put at Peeks- 
kill, and see that they start.” 

“ The soldier obeys. But he sighs that he 
may miss a battle or an adventure.” 

“ Adventures sprout under the heels of knights- 
errant like you, Peter. Peekskill is not many 
miles away from the spot of one of my young 
romances.” 

The noble old boy paused an instant, senti- 
mental with the recollection of handsome Mary 
Phillipse and nineteen years ago. 

“ The men will come like drawing teeth,” 
he resumed. “ Old Put is — what was that Latin 
phrase you used about him to Lafayette the other 
day ? ” 

“ Tenax propositi,” Skerrett replied. 

“ Anglice, obstinate as a mule. Ah, Skerrett! 
we poor land-surveyors, that had to lug levels 
and compasses through the woods, know little 
Latin and less Greek. But there was more of 
your quotation, to express the valuable side of 
Putnam’s character.” 

“Nec vultus instantis tyranni, Mente quatit 
solida,” quoted the Major; and then translated 
Impromptu, “Never a scowl, o’er tyrant’s jowl, 
His stiff old heart can shake.” 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


97 


Washington laughed. Skerrett laughed loud- 
ti‘ He was at that ebullient age when life is 
letting off its overcharge of laughter. Young 
fellows at that period are a bore or an exhilara- 
tion ; — a bore, to say the least, if their animal 
spirits are brutal spirits, — no bore, even if not 
quite the ripest company, provided their glee 
does not degenerate into uproar. 

“ I don’t know what I should do, Peter, in these 
dark times, without your irrepressible good spir- 
its,” said the chief. “ My boys — you and Hamil- 
ton and Lafayette and Harry Lee — keep me up. 
I get tired to death of the despondencies and 
prejudices and jealousies of some of these old wo- 
men in breeches who wear swords or cast votes.” 

“ Perhaps you cannot spare me then to go to 
Peekskill,” the Major said, slyly. 

His Country’s Father smiled. “ Be off, my 
boy; but don’t stay too long. Your head will 
be worth more to Old Put than a regiment. 
He ’s growing old. He shows the effects of 
tough campaigning in his youth. Besides, keep- 
ing a tavern was not the best business for a man 
of his convivial habits.” 

“ We youngsters found that out at the siege 
of Boston, when you, General, were keeping your 
head cool on baked apples and milk.” 

“ I ate ’em because I liked ’em, my boy. My 
head keeps itself cool. By the way, you will be 

5 


G 


98 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


able to help General Putnam with that hot-tem 
pered La Radidre. The old gentleman never 
can forget how the Frenchmen and their Indians 
mangled him in Canada in ’58.” 

“ He never can let anybody else forget it. 1 
would give odds that he ’ll offer to tell that story 
before I ’ve been with him fifteen minutes.’ ’ 

“ Well, good bye ! Hurry on the regulars ! 
Let him call in the militia in their places ! Tell 
him he must hold the Highlands ! If he cannot 
keep Sir Henry Clinton back until Gates take* 
Jack Burgoyne, you and I, Peter, will have tc 
paint ourselves vermilion and join the Tusca- 
roras.” 

After such a talk with our chief, — who was 
not the stilted prig that modern muffs have made 
him, — Major Skerrett departed on his mission. 
He left head-quarters a few days before that hit- 
and-miss battle of Germantown. 

Skerrett was young and a hard rider. He 
lamed his horse the first day. He lost time in 
getting another. It was the evening of October 
eighth, when, as he approached the North River 
to cross to Peekskill, the country people warned 
him back with the news that on the sixth Sir 
Henry Clinton had taken the Highland forts, 
and Putnam had run away to Fishkill. 

“ Black news ! ” thought Skerrett. “ General 
Washington will turn Tuscarora now, if ever.” 


EDWIN BEOTHERtOFt. 


Skerretfc made a circuit northward, crossed the 
Hudson at Newburgh, and reported to General 
Putnam, October 9, sunset, at the Van Wyck 
farm-house, on the plain, half a mile north of the 
Fishkill Mountains. The heights rose in front, a 
rampart a thousand feet high. 

Old Put limped out to meet Washington’s 
aide-de-camp. He was a battered veteran , lame 
with a fractured thigh, stiff with coming paraly- 
sis and now despondent after recent blunders. 

“ Dusky times, Skerrett,” says he, forlornly. 
“ I suppose the Chief sent you for men. He ’s 
a cannibal after human flesh. But don’t worry 
me to-night. To-morrow we ’re to have a Coun- 
cil of War, and I’ll see what can be done. I 
suppose you know what’s happened.” 

“ Yes, — generally.” 

“ Well ; it ’s all clear for Clinton to go up and 
join that mountebank, Jack Burgoyne. I might 
just as well go home, and set up tahvern again to 
Pomfret for anything I can do here. God save 
the King is going to make Yankee Doodle sing 
small from yesterday on. It was all the fault of 
that cursed fog, — we had a fog, thick as mush, 
all day on the sixth. I believe them British 
ships brought it with ’em in bags, from the Chan- 
nel. They chocked up the river with their fog, 
and while I was waitin’ for ’em over to Peekskill, 
they crep across and took the forts. Darn it 
all!” L.ofC. 


100 


EDWIN BROTIIERTOFT. 


Putnam paused to take an indignant breath. 
Skerrett smiled at the old hero’s manner. When 
he was excited, the Yankeeisms of his youth 
came back to him. His lisp also grew more 
decided. Nobody knows whether the lisp was 
natural, or artificial, and caused by a jaw-breaker 
with the butt of a musket he got from an uncivil 
Gaul at Fort Ti in ’58. His Yankeeisms, his 
lisp, his drollery, his muddy schemes, made the 
jolly old boy the chief comic character of our 
early Revolutionary days. 

“ How Jack Burgoyne will stick out that great 
under-lip of his, — the ugly pelican ! ” continued 
old Put, “ when he hears of this. He ’ll stop 
figlitin’, while lie goes at his proper trade, and 
writes a farce with a Yankee in it, who ’ll never 
say anything but, 4 1 veouw ! By dollars, we ’re 
chawed up ! ’ ” 

i% Don’t you remember, General,” says Sker- 
rett, “how Bunker Hill interrupted the acting 
of a farce of his ? Perhaps Gates will make him 
pout his lip, as he did when he saw you pointing 
the old mortar Congress at him and Boston from 
Prospect Hill. Don’t you recollect? We saw 
him with a spy-glass, and you said he looked like 
a pelican with a mullet in his pouch. By the 
way, where did you ever see pelicans ?” 

“ When I was down to take Cuba in ’62, and 
we did n’t take it. I ’ll tell you the story when 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


101 


l feel brighter. We were wrecked, and had not 
a thing but pelicans to eat for two days, — and 
fishy grub they are ! ” 

“ Well, we must not despair,” says Skerrett 
cheerily, seeing that the old brave began to 
brighten. 

“ Dethpair ? ” lisped Putnam, “ who ’s a goin’ 
to despair ? I tell you, my boy, you ’ll eat a 
Connecticut punkin-pie with me, yet, in peace 
and Pomfret. I wish we had one now, for 
supper.” 

“ There ’s raw material enough about,” Sker- 
rett said, glancing at the piles of that pomaceous 
berry which wallowed among the corn shocks 
and smiled at the sugary sunset. 

“ Yes ; but this is York State, and punkin- 
pies off their native Connecticut soil are always 
a mushy mess, or else tough as buckskin. Never 
mind, my boy, we ’ll sit every man under his own 
corn-stalk, on his own squash, and whistle Yan- 
kee Doodle and call it macaroni, yet. It don’t 
look half so dark to me now as it did in the Ti- 
conderogy times. Did I ever tell you the story 
how the Frenchmen and their cussed Indians 
mauled me there ? ” 

“ It ’s coming. I knew it would,” thought 
Peter, at the beginning of this sentence, “ and I 
did not bring any cotton to plug my ears ! ” 

“ Well,” continued Put, without waiting for 


102 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


his companion’s answer, “ I shall have to tell my 
tale another time, for here comes my orderly, 
with papers to sign. You remember Sergeant 
Lincoln, don’t you, Skerrett ? ” 

“ I should not remember much in this world, 
if he had not saved my life and my memory for 
me. Shall I tell you my story, short ? Scene I. 
Bunker Hill. A British beggar with a baggonet 
makes a point at Peter Skerrett’s rebel buttons 
on his left breast. Rebel Sergeant Lincoln twigs, 
describes a circle with a musket’s butt. Scene 
II. Bunker Hill. A British beggar on his back 
sees stars and points upward with his baggonet 
at those brass buttons on the blue sky. In the 
distance two pairs of heels are seen, — these,” 
says Peter, lifting his own, “ and yours, Sergeant 
Lincoln. And that ’s what I call a model story.” 

“ Ne quid nimis , certainly. Not a word to 
spare, Sir,” says the Sergeant, taking Peter’s 
proffered hand. 

He was a slender, quiet, elderly man. Per- 
haps prematurely aged by care or campaigning 
or a wound, rather than old. He handed his 
papers to the General, and withdrew. 

“ I guess I ’ve got the only orderly in the Con- 
tinental Army that can talk Latin,” says Put, 
proud as if this possession made a Julius Caesar 
of himself. “ Lincoln must have been a school- 
master before he ’listed.” 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


103 


“ There ’s no flavor of birch about him,” Sker- 
rett rejoined. “ Perhaps he stepped out of a 
pulpit to take the sword.” 

“ He don’t handle the sword very kindly. 
He ’s brave enough.” 

“ But not bloody,” interjected Peter. 

“No. There ’s men enough that can squint 
along a barrel, and drop a redcoat, and sing out, 
‘ Hooray ! another bully gone ! ’ — but not many, 
like my orderly, that can tell you why a redcoat 
has got to be a bully, and why we ’re doing our 
duty to God and man by a droppin’ on ’em. I 
tell you, he in the ranks to keep up the men’s 
sperits is wuth more than generals I could name 
with big appleettes on their backs.” 

“ Is that the reason why he stays in the ranks, 
and does not ask for epaulettes ? ” 

“ He might have had them long ago ; but he ’s 
shy of standing up for himself. I guess he ’s 
some time or other ben wownded in his mind, and 
all the impudence has run out at the wownd.” 

“ Liberty, preserve me from such phleboto- 
my ! ” devoutly ejaculated Peter. “ But has the 
Sergeant been with you all this time ? ” 

“ With my division. But I did not have him 
with me in Westchester. I stationed him here 
to look after the stores, and put recruits through 
the motions. Now, Major, I must look at these 
papers. Come to the Council of War to-morrow, 


104 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


and give us a good word. We shall want all we 
can get. The news gets worse and worse. This 
very morning General Tryon — spiteful dog — 
has been marauding this side of Peekskill, and 
burning up a poor devil of a village at the lower 
edge of the Highlands. ,, 

“ Arson is shabby warfare, 1 ” said Peter, taking 
leave. 


II 


It was in the Skerrett blood to come out red 
at a pinch. 

“ Things do look a little dusky for the good 
cause,” thought Skerrett, as, wearing his buff 
and blue coat, — far too dull a coat for so bright 
a fellow, — he stood drinking October next morn- 
ing, as we have seen him, before Mrs. BirdselPs 
cottage. 

“ The Liberty-tree is a little nipped,” he con- 
tinued. “ I suppose all the worm-eaten people 
will drop off now. Let ’em go ! and be food for 
pigs ! We sound chestnuts will stick to the 
boughs, and wear our burrs till Thanksgiving. 

“ Fine figure that ! quite poetic ! Who would 
n’t be a poet in such a poem of a morning ? 0 

Lucullus, you base old glutton, with your feasts 
and your emetics ! see here, how I breathe and 
blow, breathe and blow, — that ’s a dodge you 
were not up to ! 

“ Hooray ! now I ’m full of gold air and go- 
ahead spirits.” 

He marched off, — the gallant, buoyant young 

5 * 


106 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


brave. No finer figure of a Rebel walked the 
Continental soil unhung. On his nut-brown 
face his blonde moustache lay lovingly curling. 

The Marquis de Chastellux, the chief, if not 
the only, authority on the Revolutionary mous- 
tache, does not specify Skerrett’s in his “ Trav- 
els in America.” The distinction might have 
been invidious. But it was understood that, 
take it “ by and large,” color and curl, Sker- 
rett’s was the Moustache (with a big M) of its 
era. Many brother officers shaved in despair 
when they beheld it. Hence, perhaps, the num- 
ber of shorn lips in the portraits of our heroes 
of that time. 

“ Something is going to happen to-day,” 
thought the Major. “I bubble. I shall boil 
over, and make a fool of myself before night. 
I am in that ridiculous mood when a man loves 
his neighbor as himself, believes in success, wants 
to tilt at windmills. 0 October! you have in- 
toxicated me ! I challenge the world. Hold 
me, somebody, or I shall jump over the High- 
lands and take Sir Henry Clinton by the hair, 
then up to Saratoga and pick up Jack Bur- 
goyne, knock their pates together, and fling them 
over the Atlantic.” 

A man’s legs gallop when his blood and spirits 
are boiling after such a fashion. It did not take 
the Major any considerable portion of eternity 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


107 


to measure off the furlongs of cultivated plain 
between Fishkill village and Putnam’s head-quar 
ters. In fact, he had need to despatch. He had 
slept late after his journey. The Council would 
be assembled, and already muddling their brains 
over the situation. 

The Yan Wyck farm-house stood, and still 
stands, with its flank to the road and its front to 
the Highlands. 

“Not much clank and pomp and pageantry 
in this army of Israel Putnam,” thought Sker- 
rett. “ No tents ! Men are barracked in barns, 
I suppose, or sleep under corn-stalks, with pump- 
kins for pillows. No sentinels ! But probably 
every man keeps his eyes peeled and his ears 
pricked up for the tramp of British brogans or 
Hessian boots on the soil.” 

There was, however, a sentry standing at the 
unhinged gate in the decimated paling of the 
farm-yard. 

He turned his back, and paced to the end of 
his beat, as Major Skerrett approached. 

“ Aha ! ” thought the latter, “ Jierck Dewitt 
is as quick-sighted as ever. He wants to dodge 
me. Poor fellow ! Bottle has got him again, I 
fear. Why can’t man be satisfied with atmos- 
phere, and cut alcohol ? ” 

Skerrett entered the gate, and hailed, “ Jierck ! ” 

The sentinel turned and saluted, 


108 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


A clear case of Bottle ! The Colony of Ja- 
maica was a more important ally to Great 
Britain in the Revolution than is generally 
known. Ah! if people would only take their 
rum latent in its molasses, and pour out their 
undistilled toddies on their buckwheat cakes ! 

“ Jierck,” said the Major kindly, “ you prom- 
ised me you would not touch it.” 

“ So I did,” says the man, inflicting on him- 
self the capital punishment of hanging his head ; 
“ and I kep stiff as the Lord Chancellor, till I 
got back home to Peekskill below here. There 
I found my wife had gone wrong.” 

The poor fellow choked. A bad wife is a 
black dose. 

“ We grew up together, sir, on the Brothertoft 
Manor lands. She was a Bilsby, one of the old 
families, — as brisk and bright a gal as ever 
stepped. We were married, and travelled just 
right, she alongside of me, and I alongside of 
her, pullin’ well and keepin’ everything drawin’. 
Well, when I shouldered arms, Lady Brother- 
toft — that’s the Patroon’s widow — got my wife 
to go down to York and be her maid. It was 
lettin’ down for Squire Dewitt’s son’s wife to 
eat in anybody’s kitchen. But that’s noth- 
ing. The harm is that Lady Brothertoft’s house 
is unlucky. Women don’t go into it and stay 
straight. There ’s too much red in the parlors, — 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


109 


too many redcoats round. They say that’s why 
the Patroon cleared out, and got himself killed, 
if he is killed. That ’s what spoilt my wife.” 

Skerrett’s supernatural spirits sank a little at 
this. There was an undeveloped true lover in 
the young man, — developed enough to show him 
what misery may come from such a wrong as 
Jierck’s. 

“ That ’s why I took to rum,” continued the 
man, dismally. “ When my company was or- 
dered to join Old Put at Peekskill, and I saw all 
the old places where my wife and I used to do 
our courtin’, and saw my sister Kate smilin’ at 
her sweetheart and makin’ comforters for him, I 
could n’t stand it. They all told me to keep 
away from the woman. But I did n’t quite be- 
lieve it, you know. So I went down to the 
Manor-House and saw her. She did n’t dare to 
look me in the face. That had to be drownded 
somehow. I drownded it in rum. I can’t get 
drunk like a beast, — that is n’t into me, — but I 
have n’t been sober one hour since until we 
came up here to Fishkill.” 

“ Stop it now, Jierck, and try to forget.” 

“ What ’s the use ? ” 

“ The use is this. We were all proud of you, 
as a crack man. We cannot spare you. You 
know as well as I do what we are fighting for. 
The Cause cannot spare you. Stand to your 


no 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


guns now, like a man, against King George and 
Old Jamaica.” 

The sentinel was manned by these hearty 
words and tones. 

“ I ’ll try,” said he, “ to please you, Major 
Skerrett.” 

Up went his head and his courage. 

“ That ’s right,” says the Major ; “ and we ’ll 
have a fling at the enemy together before I go, 
and spike a gun for him.” 

“ I must take another sip of October, after 
that,” thought Skerrett, as he walked on toward 
the farm-house. 

He halted on the steps, and inspected the 
scene. 

October was quite as gorgeous to see, as it was 
glorious to tipple. It was in the Skerrett blood 
to love color. 

“ Color ! 0 blazes, what a conflagration of a 

landscape ! ” thought the Major ; “ 0 rainbows, 
what delicious blending ! V. I. B. G. Y. 0. R. 
Yiolet hills far away, indigo zenith, blue sky on 
the hill-tops, green pastures, yellow elms, chest- 
nuts, and ashes, orange pumpkins, red maples ! 
Flames ! Rainbows ! Splendors ! Take my blood, 
0 my dear country ! and cheap, too, for such a 
pageant ! ” 

There were two parts to the scene he was re- 
garding with this exhilaration, — a flat part and 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


Ill 


an upright part. All around was a great scope 
of fertile plain, gerrymandered into farms. Half 
a mile away in front, the sudden mountains set 
up their backs to show their many-colored gaber- 
dines, crimson, purple, and gold at the bottom 
flounce, belted with different shades of the same 
in regular gradation above, and sprigged all over 
with pines and cedars, green as May. 

The morning sun winked at the Major over 
the summits, saying, as plain as a wink can speak, 
“ Beat this, my Skerrett, in any clime, on any 
continent, if you can ! ” 

The Major, with both his eyes, blinked back 
ecstatically, “ It can’t be beat ! 0 Sol ! It can’t 
be beat ! ” 

When he opened his dazzled eyes, and glanced 
again about him, he seemed to see thousands of 
little suns rollicking over the fields, and congeries 
of suns piling themselves like golden bombs here 
and there. They were not suns, but pumpkins, 
rollicking in the furrows, and every congeries was 
a heap of the same, putting their plump cheeks 
together and playing “ sugar my neighbor.” 

“ We must keep war out of this,” thought the 
Major. “ Nerve my good right arm, 0 Liberty, 
to protect this pie-patch ! ” 

His earnest prayer was disturbed by the sound 
of voices close at hand. 

Immediately Sergeant Lincoln appeared at the 


112 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


corner of the house. A wondrously wiggy negio 
accompanied him. 

“ Make way for the Lord Chancellor ! ” sajs 
Skerrett to himself, as this gray-headed, dusky 
dignitary loomed up. “ If I am ever elected 
Judge, I shall take that old fellow’s scalp for a 
wig. And his manners, too! He seems to be 
laying down the law to the Sergeant, so flat that 
it will never stir again. Mysterious fellow, this 
orderly who quotes Latin ! I ’d like to solve him, 
and offer him sympathy, if he has had the ‘ wownd ’ 
old Put talks of. I owe him a cure for saving 
me from a kill.” 

The two passed by, in eager conversation. 
Skerrett turned, and entered the farm-house, 
where the officers of Putnam’s army were sigh- 
ing over blunders past, and elaborating schemes 
for the future. 

Peter’s seedy coat was freshness and elegance 
compared to the scarecrow uniforms it now 
encountered. Our Revolutionary officers were 
braves at heart, but mostly Guys in costume. 


III. 


u Ah mon camarade ! ma belle Moustache ! 
My Petare ! ” cried Colonel La Radiere, as Sker- 
rett entered. u Soyez le bienvenu ! ” 

The ardent Parisian officer of engineers rushed 
forward, and embraced his young friend with ef- 
fusion. 

“Glad to see you, Peter ! ” says Captain Liv- 
ingston, a dry fellow, son of the Patroon. “ Now, 
Radiere, there ’s a second man who talks French, 
to fire back your sacrebleus. Moi et Anthony's 
Nose sommes fatigues a vous faire echo." 

“ Come, boys,” says old Put, “ talk Continen- 
tal ! ” 

The other officers in turn made Skerrett 
welcome, and the business of brewing blunders 
went on. 

Does any one want a historic account of that 
Council of War, and what it did not do ? 

The want is easily supplied. Rap for the spirit 
of Colonel Humphreys, then late of Derby, Con- 
necticut, late of Yale College, late tutor at Phil- 
lipse-Manor. He was Putnam’s aide, and wrote 


114 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


his biography. He was an inexorable poetaster. 
He was afterwards pompous gold-stick to Mr. 
President Washington. He went as Plenipo to 
Madrid, returned, became a model of deportment, 
and was known to his countrymen as the Ambas- 
sador from Derby. 

(Raps are heard. Enter the Ghost of Hum- 
phreys. 

“ Now then, Ghost, talk short and sharp, not, 
as you used to, — to borrow two favorite words 
of yours, — sesquipedalian and stentorophonic ! 
Tell us what was done at that council, and be 
spry about it ! ” 

“ Young Sir, I shall report your impertinence 
to George Washington and Christopher Columbus 
in Elysium. Christopher will say, 4 Founder the 
continent ! ’ George will say, ‘ Perish the coun- 
try ! ’ if its youth have drawn in and absorbed 
their bump of reverence.” 

44 0, belay that, old boy ! Tell us what you 
did at the Council ! ” 

44 Nothing, your nineteenth-century ship ! ” re- 
sponds Ghost, quelled and humble. 44 We pon- 
dered, and propounded, and finally concluded to 
do nothing, and let the enemy make the next 
move.” 

44 Which he proceeded to do by sending up 
General Yaughan to burn Kingston. That’s 
uough ! Avaunt, Ghost ! ” 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


115 


Exit Humphreys to tell Chris and George 
that America is going to the dogs.) 

u Well,” said Putnam at last, “ we ’ve discussed 
and discussed, and I don’t see that there ’s any 
way of getting a crack at the enemy, unless one 
of you boys wants to swim down the river, with 
a torcli in his teeth, and set one of those frigates 
below the Highlands on fire. Who speaks ? ” 

“ Cold weather for swimming ! ” says Living- 
ston. 

“ Well, boys, you must contrive something to 
keep our spirits up,” Putnam resumed. “ When 
I was up to Fort Ti in ’58, and fighting was dull, 
we used to go out alone and bushwhack for a 
private particular Indian.” 

“ Perhaps I can offer a suggestion,” said Major 
Scrammel, Putnam’s other aide, re-entering the 
room after a brief absence. 

Scrammel was a handsomish man with a bad- 
dish face. A man with his cut of jib and shape 
of beak hardly ever weathers the lee shore of 
perdition. For want of a moustache to twirl, he 
had a trick of pulling his nose. Perhaps he was 
training that feature for tweaks to come. 

“ Blaze away, Scrammel ! ” said his General ; 
“ you always have some ambush or other in your 
head.” 

“ Lady Brothertoft’s nigger, the butler, is up 
here with the latest news from below. I have 
just been out to speak to him.” 


116 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


“ What, Scrammel ! ” says Livingston, sotto 
voce. “ A billet-doux from the fair Lucy ? ” 

“ La plus belle personne en Amerique ! ” Ra- 
di$re sighs. 

“ You don’t except the mother ? ” Living- 
ston inquired ; “ that mature, magnificent Ama- 
zon ! ” 

“No,” replied the Frenchman, laboriously 
building, brick by brick, a Gallo-American sen- 
tence. “The mother of the daughtare is too 
much in the Ladie Macquebeth. I figure to my- 
self a poniard, enormous sliarpe, in her fine 
ouhite hand, and at my heart. I seem to see 
her poot ze-pardon ! the poison in the basin — 
the bowl — the gobbelit. I say, 4 Radi&re, care 
thyself! It is a dame who knows to stab.’ Mais, 
Mees Lucie ! Ah, c’est autre chose ! ” 

“ Come, Scrammel ! ” Putnam said, impa- 
tiently ; “ we are waiting for your news.” 

“ The nigger stole away on some business of 
his own, which he is mysterious about ; but he 
tells me that his mistress consoled herself at 
# once for our retirement from Peekskill after we 
lost the forts. She had some of her friends 
from the British ships and Clinton’s army at her 
house as soon as we were gone.” 

“ I believe she is as dangerous a Tory as lives 
in all Westchester,” said the General. “ She 
ought to be put in security.” 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


m 


“ What ! after all those dinners of hers we 
have eaten, General ? ” says Livingston. 

“ I wish the dinners were out of me, and had 
never been in me,” Old Put rejoined, sheepishly. 
“I’m afraid we used to talk too much after her 
Madeira.” 

The Council was evidently of that opinion, as 
a look whisking about the circle testified. 

A very significant look, with a great basis of 
facts behind it. Suppose we dig into the brain of 
one of these officers, — say that keen Living- 
ston’s, — and unearth a few facts about Mrs. 
Brothertoft, as she is at the beginning of Part 
II. of this history. 

Now, then, off with Livingston’s scalp, and the 
top of his skull ! and here we go rummaging 
among the convolutions of his brain for impres- 
sions branded, “ Brothertoft, Mrs.” We strike 
a lead. We find a pocket. How compact this 
brain stows its thoughts! It must, for it has 
the millions on millions of a lifetime to contain. 
We have read of a thousand leagues of lace 
packed into a nut-shell. We have seen the Dec- 
laration of Independence photographed within 
the periphery of a picayune. Here ’s closer 
stowage, — a packet of thoughts of actual mate- 
rial dimensions, but so infinitesimal that we shall 
have to bring a microscope to bear before we 
can apply the micrometer. Come, Sirius, near- 


118 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


est neighbor among the suns of eternity, pour 
thy beams through our lens and magnify this 
record ! Thanks, Sirius ! Quite plain now ! 
That little black point has taken length and 
breadth, and here ’s the whole damnation in 
large pica, — Heaven save us from the like ! 

Livingston Junior on Mrs. Brothertoft. Ab- 
stract of Record : — 

“ By scalps and tomahawks, what a splendid 
virago! She must be, this summer of 1777, 
some thirty-five or thirty-six, and in her primest 
prime. Heart ’s as black as her hair, some say. 
Crushed her husband’s spirit, and he took him- 
self off to kingdom come. Ambitious ? I should 
think so. Tory, and peaches to the enemy ? Of 
course. She uses her womanhood as a blind, 
and her beauty as a snare. Very well for her to 
say, ‘ My business is to protect my property, and 
establish my daughter. Women don’t under- 
stand politics, and hate bloodshed.’ Bah ! she 
understands her kind of politics, like a Catherine 
de’ Medici. Bloodshed ! She could stab a man 
and see him writhe. But she gives capital din- 
ners, — more like England than any others in 
America. Poor old Put, honest, frank, simple- 
hearted fellow ! look at him on the sofa there 
with her, and a pint too much of her Madeira 
under his belt ! She knows just how near to let 
his blue sleeve and buff cuff come to that shouh 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


119 


der of hers. He ’ll tell all his plans to her, slu 
’ll whisper ’em to a little bird, and pounce ! one 
of these fine days the redcoats will be upon us. 
Upon us and on her sofa! Yes, and a good 
many inches nearer than Old Put is allowed 
to sit. For they do whisper scandal about Mad- 
am. When she dropped Julia Peartree Smith, 
the old tabby talked as old cats always talk about 
their ex-friends. Scandal ! Yes, by the acre ; 
but it ’s splendid to see how she walks right over 
it. And several of us fine fellows will not hear 
or speak scandal of a house where that lovely 
Lucy lives, — the sweet, pure, innocent angel. 
They say the mother means to trade her off to 
a redcoat as soon as she can find one to suit. 
Mamma wants a son-in-law who will give her, 
scandal and all, a footing among stars and gar- 
ters in England, when she has seen her estates 
safe through the war. It ’s too bad. I ’d go 
down and kidnap that guileless, trustful victim 
myself, if I was n’t so desperately lazy. There ’s 
Scrammel too, — he would play one of his mean- 
est tricks to get her. Scrammel was almost the 
only one of us boys in buff and blue that was 
not taboo from Miss Lucy’s side. Mamma was 
not over cordial to our color unless it was but- 
toned over breasts that held secrets. Her black 
eyes very likely saw scoundrel in Scram mel’s 
face, and used him. Poor Lucy ! It looks dark 


120 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


for her. And yet her love will never let her see 
what her mother is.” 

Enough, Livingston ! Thanks for this bit of 
character ! Here ’s your dot of a record, labelled 
“ Brothertoft, Mrs.” ! Now trepan your self with 
your own skull, clap your scalp back again on 
your sinciput, and listen to what Scrammel is 
saying ! 

“The old nigger tells me,” he was saying, 
“ that Sir Henry Clinton and his Adjutant spent 
the night after Forts Clinton and Montgomery 
were taken quietly at Brothertoft Manor-House.” 

“ Well,” said the General, “ then they had a 
better night than we had, running away through 
the Highlands. We can’t protect our friends. 
If the enemy have only made themselves wel- 
come at the Manor-House, instead of burning it 
for its hospitality to us, Madam is lucky.” 

“ She seems to have made her new guests 
welcome. The nigger thinks she knew they 
were coming.” 

“By George! — by Congress! I mean,” says 
Put, wincing, “ if I ever get back to Peekskill — ” 

“ She seems to think, according to her butler’s 
story, that you are never to come back,” Scram- 
mel struck in. 

“ If that is all the news you have to tell, by 
way of keeping our spirits up, you might as well 
have been silent, sir ! ” growls Putnam. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


121 


“ It ’s not all,” Scrammel resumed. The 
nigger thinks they are getting up some new 
expedition. But whether they do or not, the 
adjutant don’t go. He is to stay some days at 
the Manor.” 

“ Lord Rawdon, is n’t it ? ” Put asked. “ Well, 
he is a gentleman and a fine fellow, — not one of 
those arrogant, insolent dogs that rile us so.” 

“ Not Rawdon. He was to be. But Major 
Kerr got the appointment by family influence.” 

“ Kurr ! c’est chien, n’est ce pas ? ” whispered 
Radiere to Livingston. 

“ Yes,” returned the Captain ; “ and this Kerr 
is a sad dog. He bit Scrammel once badly at 
rnrds in New York, before the war. Scrammel 
don’t forgive. He hates Kerr, and means to bite 
back. Hear him snarl now ! ” 

“ The Honorable Major Kerr,” Scrammel con- 
tinued, “ third son of the Earl of Bendigh, Ad- 
jutant-General to Clinton’s forces, a fellow who 
hates us and abuses us and maltreats our prison- 
ers, but an officer of importance, is staying and 
to stay several days, the only guest, at Brother- 
toft Manor-House. Let me see ; it can’t be 
more than twenty miles away.” 

He marked his words, and glanced about the 
circle. His eyes rested upon Livingston last. 

“ Oho ! ” says that gentleman. “ I begin to 
comprehend. You mean to use the Brother- 


122 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


toft majordomo as Colonel Barton did his man 
Prince at Newport. Woolly-head’s skull is to 
butt through Kerr’s bedroom door, at dead of 
night. Then, enter Scrammel, puts a pistol to 
his captive’s temple and marches him off to Fish- 
kill. Bravo! Belle ide6, n’est ce pas, moa 
Colonel ? ” 

“ Magnifique ! ” rejoined Radiere. “ I felicit 
thee of it, my Scaramelle.” 

“ Now, boys ! ” says Put, “ this begins to 
sound like business. We need some important 
fellow, like Kerr, taken prisoner and brought 
here, to keep our spirits up. The thing ’s easy 
enough and safe enough. If I was twenty years 
younger, general or no general, I ’d make a dasl? 
to cut him out. Who volunteers to capture thi 
Adjutant ? ” 

“ I remember myself,” said Radi&re, gravely, 
“ of a billet, very short, very sharp, which our 
Chief wrote to Sir Clinton, lately. It was of 
one Edmund Palmer, taken — so this billet said — - 
as one espy, condemned as one espy, and hang- 
ged as espy. Sir Clinton waits to answer that 
little billet. But I do not wish to read in his 
response the name of one of my young friends, 
taken as espy and hang-ged.” 

“ Why does not Scrammel execute Scrammel’s 
plan ? ” asked Livingston. 

“I cannot be spared,” the aide-de-camp re 
sponded. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


123 


“ 0 yes ! never mind me!” cried the General 
u Skerrett, here, can fill your place. Or Hum 
phreys can stop writing doggerel and do double 
duty.” 

Scrammel evidently was not eager to leave a 
vacancy, or to gag his brother aide-de-camp’s 
muse. 

“ Why don’t you volunteer yourself, Living- 
ston ? ” he said. “ You know the country and 
the house, and seemed to be well up in the 
method of Prescott’s capture at Newport.” 

“ I have not my reputation to make,” said the 
other, haughtily. Indeed, his reckless pluck was 
well known. “But I’m desperately lazy,” which 
was equally a notorious fact. 

No other spoke, and presently all eyes were 
making focus upon that blonde Moustache, which 
the Marquis de Chastellux does not, and these 
pages do, endow with a big M, and make his- 
toric. 

It was only the other day that the wearer of 
that decoration had become the hero of a famous 
ballad, beginning, — 

“ ’T was night, rain poured; when British blades, 

In number twelve or more, 

As they sat tippling apple-jack, 

Heard some one at the door. 

“ ‘ Arise,’ he cried, — ’t was Skerrett spoke, — 

* And trudge, or will or nill, 

Twelve miles to General Washington, 

At Pennibecker’s Mill.” 


124 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


Then the ballad went on to state, in stanzag 
many and melodious, how it happened that the 
“ blades ” of his Majesty’s great knife, the Army, 
were sheathed in a carouse, at an outpost near 
Philadelphia, without sentries. Apple-jack, too, 
— why they condescended to apple-jack, — that 
required explanation: “And apple-jack, that tip- 
ple base, Why did these heroes drain ? 0, where 
were nobler taps that night, — Port, sherry, and 
champagne?” Then the forced march of the un- 
lucky captives was depicted : “It rained. The 
red coats on their backs Their skins did purple, 
olue ; The powder on their heads grew paste ; 
Each toe its boot wore through.” The poem 
closed with Washington’s verdict on the exploit: 
“ Skerrett, my lad, thou art a Trump, The ace of 
all the pack ; Come into Pennibecker’s Mill, And 
share my apple-jack ! ” 

Hero once, hero always ! When a man has 
fairly compromised himself to heroism, there is 
no let-up for him. The world looks to him at 
once, when it wants its “ deus ex macliina.” 

In the present quandary, all eyes turned to 
Peter Skerrett, Captor of Captives and Washing- 
ton’s Ace of Trumps. 

“ General,” said he, “ I seem to be the only 
unattached officer present. Nothing can be done 
now about my mission. I do not love to be idle. 
Allow me to volunteer in this service, if you 
think it important ” 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


125 


Old Put began to look grave. “You risk your 
life. If they catch you in their lines, it is hang- 
ing business.” 

“ I knew this morning,” thought the Major, 
“that I should make a fool of myself before 
night. I have ! ” 

“ No danger, General ! ” he said aloud. “ I ’ve 
got the knack of this work. I like it better than 
the decapitation part of my trade.” 

“ Ah, Skerrett ! ” Livingston says, “ that bal- 
lad will be the death of you. You will be adding 
Fitte after Fitte, until you get yourself discom- 
fitted at last. Pun ! ” 

Mj„rk this ! It was the Continental Pun at its 
point of development reached one year after the 
Declaration of Independence. 0 let us be joy- 
ful ! Let us cry aloud with joy at our progress 
since. Puns like the above are now deemed 
senile, and tolerated only in the weekly news- 
papers. 

No doggerel had been written about Scram- 
mel. No lyi’ic named him hero. “ Your friend 
seems to have a taste for the office of kidnapper,” 
he caitiffly sneered to Livingston, under cover of 
his own hand, which tweaked the Scrammel nose 
as he spoke. 

“ He has a taste for doing what no one else 
dares,” rejoined the other. “ Your nose is safe 
from him, even if he overhears you. 1 say, 


126 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


Skerrett, I don’t feel so lazy as I did. Take 
me with you. I know this country by leagues 
and by inches.” 

44 No, Harry ; General Putnam cannot spare 
his Punster. One officer is enough. I shall 
take Jierck Dewitt for my aide-de-camp. He 
knows the Brothertoft-Manor country.” 

44 Empty Jierck of rum, cork him and green- 
seal him, mouth and nose, and there cannot be 
a better man.” 

44 Since you will go, you must,” says Put. 4 ‘ By 
the way, if you want a stanch, steady man, take 
Sergeant Lincoln. He somehow knows this 
country as if he had crept over it from the 
cradle. Where is that negro of Lady Brotlier- 
toft’s, Scrammel ? ” 

“I left him talking to Lincoln. Major Sker- 
rett will easily find him.” 

44 He was my wiggy friend,” thought Skerrett. 

44 Don’t fail to bag Kerr,” says Livingston. 
44 He wants a Yankee education, — so does all 
England.” 

44 Yes,” says Radidre, 44 we must have these 
Kurr at school. We must teach to them civility 
through our noses of rebels. We must flogge 
them with roddes from the Libert6-Tree. They 
shall partake our pork and bean. Yankee 
Doodle shall play itself to them on our two 
whistles and a tambour. Go, my Skenetti 


fit) WIN BROTHERTOFT. 


127 


Liberty despatch thee ! Be the good, lucky 
boy!” 

All the officers gave him Good speed! and 
Humphreys, Poetaster-General, began to bang 
the two lobes of his brain together, like a pair 
of cymbals, to strike out rhymes in advance 
for a paean on the conquering hero’s return. 

“ You won’t stay to dinner,” cries Put. 
“ There ’s corned beef and apple-sauce, and a 
York State buckskin pumpkin-pie, — I wish it 
was a Connecticut one ! ” 

“ Yes,” says Livingston, “ and I watched the 
cook this morning coursing that dumb rooster 
of yours, General, until he breathed his last.” 

“ Ah, my Skerrett ! ” sighed Radi&re. “ Will 
posterity appreciate our sacrifices? Will they re- 
member themselves — these oblivious posterity 
— of the Frenchmen who abandoned the cui- 
sines of Paris to feed upon the swine and the 
bean d discretion , to swallow the mush sans 
melasse, to drink the Appel Jacque ? Will they 
build the marble mausoleum, inscribed, ‘ Ci- 
Git La Radiere, Colonel. He was a Good 
Heart and a Bad Stomach, and He shed his 
Digestion for Liberty?”’ 

Skerrett laughed. “ I will mention it to pos- 
terity, Colonel,” he said, — and this page re- 
deems his promise. 

Then, lest weeds might sprout under his feet, 


128 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


the Major turned his back upon dinner, — that 
moment announced, — and launched himself 
upon the current of his new adventure. 

“ Down ! ” he soliloquized ; “ down, my long- 
ings for buckskin pie, and for rooster dead of 
congestion of the lungs from over coursing! 
Tempt me not, ye banquets of Sybaris, until 
uiy train is laid and waiting for the fusee.” 


IY. 


Major Skerrett paused on the farm-house 
steps. 

“ Jierck Dewitt, I want,” he thought. “ And 
there he is on guard, looking every inch a soldier 
again. My good word has quite set him up. 
Mem. — A word of cheer costs little, and may 
help much. Now for Sergeant Lincoln and the 
negro ! ” 

Just at the edge of the bank, in front of 
the farm-house, Skerrett perceived the Sergeant 
sitting. 

His head was resting on his hands. The physi 
ognomy of his back revealed despondency. An 
old well-sweep bent over him, and seemed to 
long to comfort him with a douse of balm from 
its bucket. 

The landscape glowed, as before. The jolly 
pumpkins grinned, as before. The Major’s spirits 
were still at bubble and boil. “ Every prospect 
was pleasing, and only man ” — that is only 
Sergeant — seemed woe-begone. 

“ He is feeling his wound, — the ‘ wownd ’ Put 

6* I 


130 


EDWIN BROTHEfcTOFT. 


talked of, — I fear,” thought Skerrett. “ I must 
cheer him. Unhappy people are not allowed in 
the Skerrett precinct.” 

“ Why, Orderly ! ” says the Major, approach- 
ing, and laying his hand on the other’s shoulder ; 
“ you must not be down-hearted, man ! What 
has happened? What can I do for you ? ” 

The Sergeant raised his head, and shook it 
despairingly. 

“ Thank you,” said he. “ Nothing ! It is too 
late ! ” 

“ Too late ! That is a point of time my time- 
piece has not learnt how to mark.” 

Indeed, the Skerrett movement was too elastic 
in springs, and too regular with its balance-wheel, 
to strike any hour but “ Just in time ! ” 

The Sergeant thanked him, with a smile and 
manner of singular grace, and repeated, sorrow- 
fully, “It is too late.” 

“ Too late is suicide,” says Peter. “We will 
not cut our throats till after Indian summer. 
Presently you shall tell me what is and is not 
too late. First, I have a question or two to 
ask. The General tells me you know this coun- 
try thoroughly.” 

“I do by heart, — by sad heart.” 

“ 1 have undertaken to cut in, and cut out, 
where the enemy is, twenty miles below on the 
river.” 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


131 


The Orderly at once seemed greatly interested. 

“ Twenty miles below ? No one can know that 
region better than I.” 

“ Was it there his heart was wounded ? ” 
thought the Major. 

“ Ah, then ! you ’re just my man,” Skerrett 
continued, ignoring the other’s depression. “ I 
have volunteered on a wild-goose chase. I may 
need to know every fox-track through all the 
Highlands to get away safe with my goose, if 
I catch him.” 

Major Skerrett, surprised at a sudden air of 
eager attention and almost excitement :.n the 
older man, paused a moment. 

“ Go on ! ” said the other authoritatively, with 
a voice and manner more of Commander-in- 
Chief than Sergeant. 

Skerrett felt, as he had done before, the pecu- 
liar magnetism of this mysterious Orderly, who 
quoted Latin and bowed like a courtier. 

“ I have taken upon myself,” said he, “ to cut 
out a British officer of distinction, now staying 
at a country house twenty miles below. I may 
want you of my party. General Putnam rec- 
ommends you.” 

The Orderly sprang up and grasped Major 
Skerrett’s arm with both his hands. 

“ Who is the man ? Name ! Name ! ” he 


132 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


“ Major Kerr,” replied Skerrett, coolly. 

“ Wait ! wait a moment ! ” cried the other, 
in wild excitement. 

He rushed to the edge of the bank, where a 
path plunged off, leading to the Highland road, 
and was lost among the glowing recesses of a 
wood skirting the base of the heights. He 
halted there, and screamed, in a frantic voice, 
“ Voltaire ! Voltaire ! ” 

And neither the original destructive thinker 
thus entitled, nor any American namesake of his 
answering the call, the Orderly raced down the 
slope, with hat gone and gray cue bobbing 
against his coat-collar. 

He disappeared in the grove, and the Major 
could hear his feet upon the dry leaves, and his 
voice still crying loudly, “Voltaire! Voltaire!” 

“ Has the old man gone mad? ” thought Sker- 
rett. “ Voltaire the Great is getting too ancient 
to travel. It is hardly fair to disturb him. He 
is a soldier ‘ emeritus ’ of our Good Cause. He 
waked France up. We have to thank him 
largely that France has an appetite for free- 
dom, and sends her sons over to help us fight 
for it. But he cannot hear this hullaballoo at 
Ferney ; Lafayette, Radi&re, and the others, rep- 
resent their master, with such heart and stom- 
ach as they can. 

“ 1 must not lose sight of my runaway,” con- 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


133 


tinued he to himself. “ The name of Kerr struck 
him like a shot. He may have a grudge there. 
Some private vendetta in the case. And yet this 
mild old man always seemed to me to have en- 
tirely merged his personality in patriotism. I 
fancied that he had forgotten all his likes, dis- 
likes, loves, and hates, and given up all ties ex- 
cept his allegiance to an idea.” 

Major Skerrett walked rapidly to the edge of 
the bank, where Sergeant Lincoln had first given 
tongue for an absent philosopher. 

As he was about to follow the path, he heard 
steps again in the wood. In a moment the Or- 
derly reappeared, and ran up the slope, panting. 
He was followed by a person who moved slower, 
and blew harder, the same old wiggy negro 
whom Major Skerrett had observed laying down 
the law to his companion. 

“ So that is Voltaire ! ” thought the Major. 
“ Well, it is the first time I have ever found the 
devil blacker than he is painted.” 

The Orderly sank, agitated and out of breath, 
on the ground. 

Voltaire came up the hill, and, being hatless, 
pulled hard at his gray wig, by way of salute. 
The wig was rooted to the scalp. Voltaire left 
it in situ , and bowed as grandly as a black 
dignitary may when he is blown by a good 
run 


134 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


“ I was in despair just now,” said Sergeant 
Lincoln. “In despair when I said it was too 
late to help me. Perhaps it is not so. I trust 
God sends you, Major Skerrett, to show us the 
way out of our troubles.” 

“ This is sound Gospel,” thought Skerrett. 
“ This black Voltaire may be the Evangelist ; 
but the Gospel is unimpeachable.” 

“ Come, Sergeant,” continued he aloud, “ tell 
me what all this means, my friend. We must 
despatch. My bird down the river may take 
wing, if I waste time.” 

“ I am pained, my dear young friend,” said 
the senior, rising, “ to acknowledge to you an 
unwilling deceit of mine. But I must do so. 
You have known me always under a false name. 
I am not Lincoln, but Brothertoft, — Edwin 
Brothertoft.” 

“ My father’s friend ! ” said Skerrett, taking 
the other’s hand. “ Mr. Brothertoft, so missed, 
so desired by the Good Cause. Why ” 

Here Major Skerrett interrupted himself, and 
went to rummaging in his brain for the discon- 
nected strips of record stamped, “ Brother tofts, 
The family.” The strips pasted themselves to- 
gether, and he ran his mind’s eye rapidly along, 
as one might read a mile or so of telegram in 
cipher. 

As he read with one eye introverted and gah 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


135 


loping over the record, while it whirled by like 
a belt on a drum making a million revolutions in 
a breath, he kept the other eye fixed upon Mr. 
Brothertoft, alias Lincoln, before him. 

This sad, worn, patient, gentle face supplied a 
vivid flash of interpretation. It shed light upon 
all the dusky places in Major Skerrett’s knowl- 
edge of the family. The eye looking outward 
helped the eye looking inward. Instantly, by 
this new method of utilizing strabismus, he saw 
what he remembered faintly become distinct. He 
could now understand why this quiet gentleman 
had dropped his tools, — forceful mallet and keen 
chisel, — and let the syllables of his unfinished 
mark on the world wear out. 

“I have heard and read of these blighting 
hurts,” thought Peter, “ and I trifled with their 
existence, and was merry as before, — God forgive 
me ! Now I touch the wounded man, and it 
chills me. I lose heart and hope. But strangely, 
too, this man who first teaches me to feel the pain, 
teaches me also that the sufferer needs my love. 
Seems to me I am more in earnest than I was 
two minutes ago. I feel older and gentler. I 
wish I was his son ! ” 

“ Why ? ” said Edwin Brothertoft, answering 
slowly and sadly, while the other’s brain read 
records and forged thoughts at this furious speed. 
“ Would you ask me why my life is what it is, 


136 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


and not wliat men would say it might have been ? 
Ah, my friend, the story is long and dreary, — too 
dreary to darken the heart of youth.” 

Sadly as he spoke, there was no complaint in 
his tone. He seemed to regard his facts a little 
dreamily, as if he were mentioning some other 
man’s experience. 

“ But the past is dead,” he continued, “ and 
here are present troubles alive and upon me.” 

u Troubles alive ! ” says the Major, feeling 
brave, buoyant Peter Skerrett still stirring under 
the buff and blue. “ Those I can help floor, 
perhaps. Name them ! ” 

He looked so victorious, and the Moustache, 
albeit unknown to the pages of De Chastellux, 
so underscored his meaning nose, and so drew 
the cartouche of a hero about his firm mouth, 
that Brothertoft thrilled with admiration through 
his sadness. 

Everybody has seen the phantasmagoric shop- 
sign. “ Vinegar,” you read upon it, as you ap- 
proach down the street. You don’t want Vinegar, 
and you gaze reproachfully at the sign. But 
what is this ? As you advance, a blur crosses 
your eyes. ’Twas Vinegar surely! ’Tis Sugar 
now. And that you do want; and proceed to 
purchase a barrel of crushed, a keg of powdered, 
and a box of loaves wearing foolscaps of Tyrian 
purple on their conical bald pates. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


137 


Edwin Brothertoft had seen only Despair 
written up before him. He advanced a step, at 
Skerrett’s words, lifted up his eyes, and Despair 
shifted to Hope. 

“ When you named Major Kerr,” he said, 
“ you named one who is devising evil to me and 
mine. Capture him and the harm is stayed. 
My faithful old friend Voltaire and I will try to 
tell you the story between us.” 

Voltaire considered this his introduction, and 
bowed pompously. 

“ You are too juicy, Voltaire, and too shiny, and 
not sardonic enough, to bear the name of the 
weazened Headpiece of France,” the Major said. 
“ When I made my pilgrimage to Ferney, I found 
that Atropos of Bigotry in a night-cap and dress- 
ing-gown, looking as wrinkled, leathery, and 
Great as one of Michael Angelo’s Sibyls. I hope 
you are as true to Freedom as he was, and a 
more wholesome man.” 

Skerrett made this talk to give the old fellow 
time to blow, as well as to stir up a smile to the 
surface of Brothertoft’s sad face. 

“ Yes sir,” said the negro, bowing again. 
u Voltaire, sir, omnorum gotherum of Brother- 
toft Manor-House. Hannibal was my name ; 
but I heard Mr. Ben Franklin say that Mr. Vol- 
taire was the greatest man he knowed, so I mar- 
ried to that name, and tuk it.” 


138 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


Here he paused and grinned. His white teeth 
gleamed athwart his face, as the white stocking 
flashes through, when one slits a varnished boot, 
too tight across the instep. 

“ I have been here at Fishkill some months,” 
said Brothertoft. “ At first I did not allow my- 
self to think of my family. Then neighborhood 
had its effect. I communicated my whereabouts 
to this trusty friend. He got my message, and 
comes to give me the first news I have had 
since I left home at the news of Lexington.” 

“ More than two years ago,” Skerrett said. 

“And in those two years,” continued the 
other, “ my daughter has passed from child to 
woman.” 

“Oho!” thought Peter. “His daughter — 
Radiere’s la plus belle — is in this business. 
My years in Europe had made me almost for- 
get there was such a person. Is she like father, 
or mother, I wonder ? ” 

“From child to woman, sir,” says Voltaire, 
“ and there ’s not such another young lady in 
the Province, — State, I mean.” 

Bravo, Voltaire! You refuse to talk “nig- 
ger.” You still remember that Tombigbee is a 
dialect taboo to you. Continue to recollect that 
on these pages you are a type of a race on whose 
qualities the world is asking information. Chris- 
ty’s Minstrels dance out their type negro, .T im 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


139 


Crow, an impossible buffoon. La Beecher Stowe 
presents hers, Uncle Tom, an exceptional saint. 
Mr. Frederick Douglass introduces himself with 
a courtier’s bow and an orator’s tongue. The 
ghost of John C. Calhoun rushes forward, and 
points to a stuffed Gorilla. Then souviens toi 
Voltaire of thy representative position, and don’t 
lapse into lingo ! 

“ When I abandoned home,” Brothertoft re- 
sumed, “ I believed that I could be of no further 
use to a daughter who had disowned me. But I 
have found that a man cannot cease to love his 
own flesh and blood.” 

“ Nor his flesh and blood him,” says the ne- 
gro. “Other people may do the hating. Miss 
Lucy only knows how to love.” 

Fort bien Voltaire! except the pronunciation 
“ lub.” 

u It was only a day or two before the capture 
of the forts that my tardy message of good-will 
reached my friend here,” said the ex-Patroon. 

“ And just in time,” that friend rejoined. 

“ I hope so,” sighed Putnam’s Orderly. 

“ Yes sir,” the negro said, turning to Skerrett. 
“ It was now or never. So I left my great din- 
ner-party. Sir Henry Clinton and his suite were 
to dine with us to-day ! ” 

“ Grand company ! ” the Major said, seeing 
that a tribute of respect was wanted 


140 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


“ Sirr Henery Clinton ! ” repeated the butlei 
with pride. “ I did n’t like to leave. My wife 
Sappho can cook prime. My boy Plato can pass 
a plate prime. But where ’s the style to come 
from when I ’m away ? Who ’s to give the sig- 
nals ? 6 Ground dishes ! Handle covers ! Draw 

covers! Forrud march with covers to the pan- 
try ! ’ Who ’s to pull the corks and pour the 
Madeira so it won’t blob itself dreggy ? ” 

He paused and sighed. 

Edwin Brothertoft was silent. The thought 
of Red dinner-parties at the Manor was evi- 
dently not agreeable to him. 

“We are not getting on at a gallop,” thought 
Skerrett. “ But we are on the trail. My guides 
must take their own time. They know the way 
and the dangers, and I do not. The facts will 
all come out within five minutes.” 

“Well, Voltaire,” he said, “a bad appetite 
to ’em all ! Go on with your story. You make 
me hungry with your dinner-parties.” 

“ Ha, ha ! ” chuckled the butler, — his vision 
of himself as Ganymede, serving Sir Clinton 
Tonans with hypernectareous tipple, vanishing. 
“ Ha, ha ! ” and with his triumph he lapsed for 
a moment into Tombigbee : “ Dey tinks, down 
ter de Manor, dat I ’se lyin’ sick abed wid de 
colored mobbus.” 

.Ind then the old fellow proceeded to relate 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


141 


how he had shammed sick yesterday, dodged 
away at evening, and tramped all night by by- 
paths through the Highlands ; how British scouts 
had challenged his steps and fired at his rustle ; 
how stumbling-blocks had affronted his shins, 
and many a stub had met his toes ; and how 
at last, after manifold perils, he had found his 
old master under the guise of an Orderly, and 
announced to him a new wrong in the house 
of Brothertoft, — a new wrong, the climax of an 
old tyranny. 

No wonder Mr. Brothertoft had been despond- 
ent so that even his back showed it, — so de- 
spondent, that the well-sweep longed to douse 
him with a bucket of balm. No wonder that 
he sadly said, “ Too late ! ” and could see no 
better hour than that, marked by the Skerrett 
timepiece. 

Now then for this new wrong! It shall be 
told condensed, so that indignation can have it, 
a tough nut to crack with its teeth. 


V. 


“In short,” says Voltaire, winding up his 
story, “ Madame Brothertoft is going to marry 
off Miss Lucy to Major Kerr, day after to-morrow 
evening.” 

“To marry off ! Then it is nilly the lady!” 
Skerrett said. 

“ Nilly, sir ! Yes, the nilliest kind ! ” 

There, Sir Peter, is a tough nut for your In- 
dignation to bite on ! 

Peter was an undeveloped True Lover. The 
“ vital spark of heavenly flame ” was in him ; 
but it lay latent under his uniform, as fire 
lurks in a quartz pebble, until the destined little 
boy strikes another quartz pebble against it. 
Now there is a little boy of Destiny whose trade 
it is to go about knocking hearts together and 
striking Love, — that pretty pink flash, that rosy 
flash, which makes cheeks blush sweeter and 
eyes gleam brighter than they knew how to 
blush and gleam before, — that potent flash 
which takes hold of proper hearts and carbo- 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


143 


nizes them into diamonds of gleam unquench- 
able, with myriad facets and a smile on every 
one, — that keen flash which commands bad 
hearts to burn away into ugly little heaps of 
gray ashes. There is such an urchin, and Cupid, 
alias Eros, is his name. He had tapped Peter 
Skerrett’s heart several times with hearts labelled, 
“ Anna’s heart,” “ Belinda’s heart,” “ Clara’s 
heart,” “ Delia’s heart,” and so on down the 
alphabet. No perceptible love had answered 
these taps. Perhaps the urchin made the female 
heart impinge upon the male, instead of clash- 
ing them together in mutual impact. Or per- 
haps he did not do his tapping in a dark place, 
— for shadow is needful to show light, — love 
wants sorrow for a background. 

However this might be, Peter Skerrett was still 
an undeveloped true lover. He had made no 
mistakes in love, he had had no disappointments. 
His illusions were not gone. He still believed 
love was the one condition of marriage. Mar- 
riage without it this innocent youth deemed an 
outrage. 

The latent love in his heart cried, “ Shame ! ” 
when he heard Voltaire’s story. Indignant blood 
rushed to his cheeks, to his eyes indignant fire, 
and curl indignant to his moustache. He dis- 
charged a drop of ire by skimming a flat stone 
at a chattering chipmunk, enthroned on a pump* 


144 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


kin hard by. Then he began to put in trenchant 
queries. 

“ You are sure, Mr. Brothertoft, that your 
daughter does not love Kerr.” 

“ Sure. I have her word for it.” 

“ Does he love her ? ” 

“He wants her.” 

“ Why ? ” 

“ She is a beauty and an heiress, — those are 
the patent charms.” 

“ Ah ! But does she know that Kerr is a fan- 
faron and a rake, — selfish, certainly, probably 
base, and very likely cruel ? ” 

“ She knows only what her mother tells her. 
Friends are taboo in that house.” 

“ But does she divine nothing ? Nothing to 
base a refusal on ? Pardon me if my tone seems 
to express a doubt of this young lady, but — ” 

“ But you have seen so many captivated by 
rank and a red coat. My friend, I have done her 
greater injustice than any you can imagine. I 
believed my own child spoiled by bad influences. 
We could not understand each other. An evil- 
omened figure held a black curtain between us. 
I was too sick at heart to see the truth. I had 
lost my faith. I thought that my daughter 
had taken in poison with her mother’s milk. I 
fancied that she was a willing pupil when her 
mother taught her to hate and despise me. I 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


145 


abandoned her. Miserable error, — miserable ! 
And punished now ! punished most cruelly ! My 
spleen, my haste, my intemperate despair, are 
bitterly punished by my daughter’s danger. How 
fatally I misjudged her in my sore-wounded 
heart ! I know her better at last. Better now, 
when I fear it is too late to save her. I know 
her at last through' this faithful servant and 
friend. He stood by her when I forsook her. 
God forgive me ! God forgive me ! ” 

He poured out this confession with passion 
growing as he spoke. Then he turned and 
grasped Major Skerrett by the shoulder. 

“ What is to be done ? ” he cried. 

“ Much ! ” said Skerrett, quietly, command- 
ing his own eagerness roused by the other’s 
agony. “ Remember that this wedding is not 
to be before day after to-morrow. I have vol- 
unteered to present the intended bridegroom to 
General Putnam here, by that time. Do you sup- 
pose I intend to break my engagement, whether 
it forbids his banns or not ? ” 

He assumed more confidence than he felt. 
The enterprise was growing complicated. While 
there was merely question of taking or not tak- 
ing a prisoner, Skerrett could look at the matter 
coolly. Success was only another laurel in his 
corona triumphal is ! Failure was but a bay the 
less. If he bagged his man, another canto of 
7 l 


146 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


doggerel. No bag, no poem. The attempt even 
would keep Put and his paladins amused until 
their general decadence of tail was corrected, and 
their bosoms swelled with valor again, and that 
was enough. 

But here was a new character behind the 
scenes. The hero’s pulse began to gallop and 
his heart to prance. A woman’s happiness at 
stake ! 

“ Ah ! ” reflected the Major, “ I was cool 
enough so long as I thought I was merely enter- 
taining a circle of downcast braves, bushwhack- 
ing to steal an exchangeable Adjutant, and giv- 
ing the enemy an unexpected dig in the ribs. 
But the new portion of the adventure makes me 
shaky. If I fail, I lose my laurel, all the same, 
and a lady has to be bonneted with a wreath of 
orange-flowers against her will. If I don’t bag, 
Beauty goes to the Kerrs ; I miss my canto and 
the poem of her life becomes a dirge. I must 
not think of it, or I shall lose my spirits.” 

“ Prying into a maiden’s heart is new business 
to me,” he resumed to the father, who stood 
watching him anxiously. “ I cannot quite com- 
prehend this matter. She does not love this 
man. Her dislike has brought about a reconcili- 
ation between you. Where is her No ? I have 
heard that women carry such a weapon, — bran- 
dish it, too, and strike on much less provocation 
than she has.” 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


14T 


%< She is not a free agent,” replied Brothertoft. 
“ Her mother dominates her. She forced her to 
disown me. She will force her to this marriage. 
Lucy has been quelled all her life. I hope and 
believe that if she were released, or even support- 
ed for one moment in rebellion, her character 
might find it had vigor. But she is still wil- 
low in her mother’s hands. If the mother, for 
whatever reasons, has made up her mind to this 
marriage, she will crowd her daughter into it.” 

“ What reasons are sufficient for such tyran- 
ny ? ” 

“ I divine metaphysical reasons, that I cannot 
speak of. It pains me greatly, my dear young 
friend, to talk harshly "of my daughter’s mother. 
Perhaps after all she may mean kindly now. 
She may be mistaken in Kerr.” 

“ No,” said Peter. “ No woman of the world 
can mistake such a fellow.” 

“ Still, he is a strong friend to have on the 
other side.” 

“ Yes ; and this is a moment when the other 
side is up and we are down. I can see how, 
with these great estates, a Patrooness may be 
willing to save herself a confiscation. She can 
pretend to be neutral, with a leaning to Liberty, 
and leave her son-in-law to rescue the acres if 
Liberty goes to the gallows.” 

“ Such considerations have brought matters to 


148 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


a crisis. Kerr is there on the spot. Clinton is 
victor. So the poor child is hurried off without 
giving her time to consider.’’ 

“ We must make time for her. I will go at 
my plans presently. But I should like to hear a 
little more of Voltaire’s story.” 

“You are very kind to take this interest in 
the welfare of a desolate and disheartened man, 
and those who are dear to him.” 

Peter’s cheeks were too brown to show blushes, 
and his cocked hat covered his white forehead ; 
but he noticed that his heart was brewing a crim- 
son blush, whether it burst through the valves 
and came to the surface or not. In fact he be- 
gan to feel a lively sympathy for this weak girl, 
into whose orbit he was presently to fling him- 
self, like a yellow-haired comet, with spoil-sport 
intent. The more he tried to cork in his blush, 
the more it would n’t be corked. And presently 
bang it came to the surface. His white forehead 
tingled at every pore, as the surface of a glass of 
Clicquot may tingle with its own bursting bub- 
bles. No such rosy flash had ever showed on his 
countenance, when Anna’s or Belinda’s or Clara’s 
or Delia’s cheeks challenged him to kindle up. 
But the mere thought of a name much lower 
down in the alphabet now made his heart eager 
to do its share in striking fire and lighting this 
sorrowful scene about the Lucy in question. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT 


149 


The sad father was not in the way to observe 
blushes; nor was Yoltaire, who now proceeded 
to finish his story. 

For fear the worthy fellow might lapse into 
brogue, — whereupon the ghost of John C. Cal- 
houn would hurroo with triumph, and ventrilo- 
quize derisive niggerisms through the larynx of 
his type negro, the stuffed Gorilla, — Voltaire’s 
tale shall be transposed into the third person. 
Then the hiatuses can be filled up, and we shall 
be able to peer a little into Lucy Brothertoft’s 
heart, and see whether the Heavenly Powers 
have guarded her, as Sappho the cook long ago 
prophesied they would. 


VI. 


No hag is a houri to her fille de chambre. 

Mrs. Brothertoft, handsome hag, was thor- 
oughly comprehended by the Voltaire family. 
That was no doubt part of their compensation 
for being black, and below stairs. 

Sweet Lucy was also well understood in the 
kitchen. 

Many a pitiful colloquy went on about her 
between those three faithful souls. 

Sappho’s conundrum, “ What is de most im- 
portantest ’gredient in soup ? ” was often pro- 
pounded. Voltaire always protested against 
such vulgar remarks. Plato always guessed 
“Faith!” and pretended he ’d never heard the 
riddle before. 

“Faith is all very well,” Voltaire would say, 
in studied phrase, as a model to his son. “ But 
where is the Works ? Where is the Works to 
help Miss Lucy ? ” 

“Jess ycu keep yer grip onto de Faith,” his 
wife would respond, “ an’ de Works will jus- 
8umfy, when de day of jussumfication comes.” 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


151 


So Lucy grew up a grave, sad, lonely young 
girl. Her heart was undeveloped, for she had 
no one but her mother to love. She loved there, 
with little response. Her mother received, and 
did not repel, her love. That was enough for 
this affectionate nature. As to sympathy, they 
were strangers. 

“ She seems to me bitterly cold, when I love 
her so dearly,” Lucy would say to herself ; “ but 
how can I wonder? My father’s wrong-doing 
has broken her heart. Her life must be mere 
endurance. Mine would be, if I were so disap- 
pointed in one I loved. It is now.” 

And the poor child’s heart would sink, and 
her eyes fill, and thick darkness come over her 
future. 

She lived a sadly lonely life. She could 
never be merry as other girls. There was a 
miserable sense of guilt oppressing her soul. 
The supposed crimes of her father — those un- 
known enormities — weighed upon her. These, 
she thought, were what made many good people 
a little shy of the Brothertoft household. She 
could not fail to perceive a vague something in 
which her mother’s house was different from 
other houses she was permitted slightly to know. 
Why were so many odious men familiar there ? 
When the family were in town, she could avoid 
them, day and evening, and spend long hours 


152 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


unnoticed and forgotten in her own chamber. 
She could escape to books or needlework. But 
why did her mother tolerate these coarse men 
from the barracks, with their Tom, Dick, and 
Harry talk ? To be sure these were days of war, 
and Mrs. Brothertoft was loyal in her sympathies, 
though non-committal, and “ She may think it 
right,” thought Lucy, “ to show her loyalty in 
the only way a woman can, by hospitality. But 
I am glad she does not expect me to help her 
entertain her guests. I am glad I am a child 
still. I hope I shall never be a woman.” 

Her life took a sombre cast. She sank into a 
groove, and moved through the hours of hei 
days a forlorn and neglected creature. 

“ Queer ! ” Julia Peartree Smith would say 
of her. “ A little weak here,” and Julia touched 
her forehead, just below her chestnut front. 
“ She is a Brothertoft, and they were always 
feeble-minded folk, you know. But perhaps 
it ’s just as well,” — and Julia sank her voice 
to a mean whisper, — “just as well she should n’t 
be too sharp-sighted in that house. I really be- 
lieve the silly chit loves her mother, and thinks 
her as good as anybody. I tried to give her a 
half-hint once, but the little fool fired up red- 
hot and said, I was a shameful old gossip, — 
‘ old,’ indeed ! ” 

So Lucy lived, utterly innocent of any dream 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


163 


of the evil she was escaping. There is something 
sadly beautiful and touching in this spectacle. 
A moonlit cloud flitting over the streets of a 
great wicked city, pausing above foul courts 
where vice slinks and crime cowers, reflected 
in the eddies of the tainted river, — the same 
eddy that was cleft at solemn moonrise by a sui- 
cide, — this weft of gentle cloud is not more un- 
conscious of all the sin and shame beneath it, 
than Lucy of any wrong. The cloud beholds the 
pure moon, and drifts along unsullied ; Lucy 
saw only her own white and virginal faith. It 
was not a warming, cheering luminary ; but it 
shed over her world the gray, resigned light of 
patience. 

A touching sight! the more so, because we 
know that the character will develop, and, when 
it is ripe enough to bear maturer sorrows and to 
perceive a darker shame, that the eyes will open 
and the sorrow and shame will be revealed, 
standing where they have so long stood unseen. 

After this little glimpse of Lucy’s life, monot- 
onously patient for the want of love, Voltaire 
takes up his narration again. 

Voltaire thought Mrs. Brothertoft had deter- 
mined to marry off Miss Lucy to Major Kerr as 
long ago as last spring, before they left town. 
She did not, however, announce her plans until 
they were in the country. She probably knew 


154 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


that this was a case where the betrothed had 
better not see too much of each other. 

“ I remember the day,” says the negro, “ when 
Miss Lucy began to mope. Roses was comin’ in 
strong. She used to fill the house with ’em. 
Sometimes she ’d sing a little, while she was 
fixin’ ’em. But from that day out, she ’s never 
teched a flower nor sung a word. She ’s just 
moped.” 

By and by Voltaire had discovered the reason. 

It was the wreath of mock orange-flowers 
dangled over Lucy’s head by a false Cupid, 
Anteros himself, that had taught her to hate 
roses and every summer bloom. Her faint songs 
were still because her- heart was sick. The bride- 
groom was coming, and her mother had notified 
the bride to put on her prettiest smile. This 
command was given in Mrs. Brother toft’s short, 
despotic way. Neither side argued. Lucy pre- 
pared to obey, just as she would have thrust a 
thorn in her foot, or swallowed a coal, upon 
order. She was not so very happy. She could 
be a little more unhappy without an unbearable 
shock. Major Kerr did not disgust her so much 
as some of her mother’s intimates. Still the 
prospect was not charming. The summer roses 
lost color to her eyes. Color left the cheeks that 
once rivalled the roses. The bride did not try to 
smile. Smiles are smiles only when the heart 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


155 


pulls the wires. It takes practice to work the 
grimace out of a forced smile, so that it may pass 
for genuine. 

When was the bridegroom coming ? That in- 
formation the bridegroom himself, though Sir 
Henry Clinton’s Adjutant, could not yet precisely 
give. “ We are soon to make a blow at the 
Highlands, — then you will see me,” — so he 
wrote, and sent the message in a silver bullet. 
Silver bullets, walnuts split and glued together, 
and stuffed with pithy notes instead of kernels, 
and all manner of treacherous tokens, passed be- 
tween Brothertoft Manor and the Red outposts. 
Whether facts leaked out from leaky old Put 
when glasses too many of the Brothertoft Yellow- 
seal were under his belt ; whatever true or false 
intelligence Scrammel paid for his post on Miss 
Lucy’s sofa, — every such fact was presently 
sneaking away southward in the pocket of young 
Bilsby, or some other Tory tenant on the Manor. 

“I saw Miss Lucy mopin’ and mopin’ worse 
and worse,” says Yoltaire, “ but I could n’t do 
nothin’, and there I sot in the pantry, like a 
dumb hoppertoad, watchin’ a child walkin’ up to 
a rattlesnake.” 

Voltaire’s Faith without Works was almost 
dead. 

Young Bilsby must have sneaked up to Broth- 
ertoft Manor with the news ^f Clinton’s ixpedi 


156 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


tion to the relief of Burgoyne, just at the time 
that Mr. Brotliertoft’s announcement of his pres- 
ence at Fishkill reached Yoltaire. 

“ I did not dare tell Miss Lucy her father was 
so near,” says the major-domo, “ until, all at 
once, on the fourth of this month, we saw King 
George’s ships lying off King’s Ferry; and by 
and by up the hill comes Major Kerr to the 
Manor-House, red as a beet.” 

Upon this arrival, Lucy first fully compre- 
hended what misery the maternal fiat was to 
bring upon her. Yoltaire found her weeping 
and utterly desolate. At once his Faith worked 
out words. The dumb hoppertoad found voice 
to croak, “ Ware rattlesnake ! ” 

“ You are going to be married, Miss Lucy ? ” 
he asked. 

She wanted sympathy sadly, poor child ! As 
soon as he spoke, she made a tableau and a scene, 
— both tragic. She laid her head on the old 
fellow’s shoulder, — Tableau. She burst into 
tears, — Scene. 

Woolly wig and black phiz bent over fair hair 
and pale face. Delicate lips of a fine old Lin- 
colnshire stock murmured a plaint. Thick lips 
of coarse old African stock muttered a vow of 
devotion. A little, high-bred hand, veined with 
mngre azul , yielded itself to the leathery pres- 
sure of a brown paw. Ah, poor child ! she had 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


157 


need of a friend, and was not critical as to 
color. 

“ To be married ? ” Lucy responded, when 
sobs would let her speak. “ Yes, Voltaire, in 
three or four days.” 

“ Time ’s short as Sappho’s best pie-crust.” 

“ Mother says,” continued the young lady, 
“ that I must have a protector. The Major is 
here now, and may be ordered up or down any 
day. Mother says it is providential, and we 
must take advantage of the opportunity, and be 
married at once.” 

She looked very little like a bride, with her 
sad, shrinking face. 

“ Don’t you love Major Kerr ? ” asked Vol- 
taire. “ Lub ” he always must pronounce this 
liquid verb. 

“Do I love him, Voltaire? I hope to when 
we are married. Mother says I will. She says 
the ceremony and the ring will make another 
person of me. She says she has chosen me an 
excellent match, and I must be satisfied. 0 
Voltaire ! it seems a sin to say it, but my mother 
is cold and harsh with me. Perhaps I do not 
understand her. If I only had some other 
friend ! ” 

“ You have,” Voltaire announced. 

“You — I know,” she said, kindly. 

“ Closer — miles closer ’n me ! ” 


158 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


“ Who ? Do you mean any one of our loyal- 
ist neighbors ? ” 

Lucy ran her thought over her short list of 
friends. All the valued names had been ex- 
punged by her mother’s strict censorship, or 
pushed back among mere acquaintance. 

“ Have you forgotten your father ? ” the but- 
ler asked. 

“ Forgotten ! I go every day, when no one 
is by, and lift up the corner of the curtain over 
the Tandy ck. Our ancestor is my father him- 
self. I look at him, and pray God to forgive 
him for being so wicked, and breaking my moth- 
er’s heart.” 

“ Poh ! ” 

Lucy drew back in astonishment, as if a Paix- 
han blow-gun had exploded at her side. 

“ Poh ! ” again burst out Voltaire’s double- 
corked indignation. “If there was a wicked 
one in that pair, it was n’t him. If there ’s a 
heart broke, it ’s his.” 

Lucy for a moment did not think of this as 
an assault upon her mother. 

“ What, Voltaire ! ” she cried. “ He is not 
dead ! Not a bad man ! Not a rebel ! ” 

“ Rebel ! ” says the French radical’s name- 
sake. “ Why should n’t he be a rebel for Free- 
dom ? Bad ! he ain’t bad enough to marry off 
his daughter only to git shet of her. Dead! 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


159 


No, Miss Lucy ; he ’s up to Fishkill, and sends 
you his lub by me, if you want it.” 

Love — even disguised as “ Lub ” — it was 
such a fair angel of light, that Lucy looked up 
and greeted it with a smile. But this was not 
a day for smiles. Storms were come after long 
gray weather. Only tears now, — bitter tears ! 
They must flow, sweet sister ! It is the old, 
old story. 

“ Does he really love me ? Is this true ? Was 
he true? Was I deceived? Why did he and 
my mother separate ? Why did she drive him 
out ? Whom can I trust ? Is every one a 
liar? What does this mean? Answer me, Vol- 
taire ! Answer me, or I shall die.” 

Voltaire looked, and did not answer. To an- 
swer was a terrible revelation to make to this 
innocent girl. Faith was putting the old fellow 
to very cruel Works. 

“ Speak ! ” said Lucy again, more passionately 
than before, and her voice expressed the birth of 
a new force within her. “ Speak ! What have 
you to say of my mother? I dread some new 
sorrow. Tell me what it is, or I shall die.” 

Again these pages refuse to listen to the few 
deplorable words of his reply. He whispered 
the secret of her mother’s disloyal life. 

“ I will not believe it,” said the horror-stricken 
girl. 


160 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


She did believe it. 

She had touched the clew. From this moment 
she knew the past and the present, — vaguely, as 
a pure soul may know the mystery of sin. 

For the moment she felt herself crushed to a 
deeper despair than before. She recognized the 
great overpowering urgency of Fate. She could 
not know that this recognition marks to the soul 
its first step into conscious immortality ; and that 
the inevitable struggle to conquer Fate must now 
begin in her soul. 

“ What can I do ? ” she said ; and she looked 
guiltily about the chamber, as if every object in 
that house were the accomplice of a sin. 

“ Run away with me to your father ! ” said 
Yoltaire. 

She shook her head weakly. She was a great, 
great way yet from any such exploit with her in- 
fant will. 

“ No,” she said ; “ I must obey my mother. 
That is my plain duty. She is pledged and I 
am pledged to this marriage. I must submit.” 
Tears again, poor child I The old habits are still 
too strong for her. 

“But suppose your father should tell you tc 
obey him, and not submit,” Yoltaire propounded. 
“ Suppose he should help to run you off.” 

“ How can he ? ” 

“I will steal off to-night to Fislikill, and see 
Him.” 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


16.1 


u You risk your life.” 

“ Poh ! ” 

“ Poh ! ” is not a word to use to a young lady, 
Mr. Voltaire. Yet perhaps nothing could ex- 
press so well as that explosive syllable how 
much and how little he valued life when the 
lady’s happiness was at stake. 

“ But I did n’t want Miss Lucy to be fright- 
ened, of course,” says he to Major Skerrett, “ so 
I told her that I was safe enough in the High- 
lands, and when I got here I did n’t believe Major 
Scrammel would let me be shot for a spy.” 

Here he gave a monstrous sly look. 

Peter Skerrett again felt his cheeks burn, and 
his forehead tingle, and the stilled Muse of His- 
tory reports that “ he uttered a phrase indicative 
of reprehension and distrust.” 

In short, he said to himself, “ Scrammel ! damn 
the fellow ! ” 

Certainly ! Why not ? But it must not be 
forgotten, that it is Scrammel who suggested this 
expedition. Voltaire told Scrammel of the mar- 
riage. Scrammel, as our peep into friend Liv- 
ingston’s brain informed us, would do one of his 
meanest tricks to be himself the bridegroom. 
And his scheme seems to be in a fair way to for- 
bid the banns. 

And so guileless Lucy Brothertoft had con- 
sented to her first plot. Her accomplice was to 


162 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


shift the burden of weakness from her shoulders, 
and throw it upon her father. Meantime she 
was to take her place at the great dinner-party, 
and be a hypocrite for the first time. How 
guilty felt that innocent heart ! How she dread- 
ed lest some chance word or look might betray 
her! What torture was the burning blush in 
her cheeks as she began to comprehend the wo- 
man she must name mother ! How she trem- 
bled lest that woman’s cruel eyes should pierce 
her bosom, see the secret there, and consign her, 
without even the appointed delay, to the ardent 
bridegroom. She knew that she should yield 
and obey. Now that for the first time she was 
eager to have a will of her own, she saw how 
untrained and inefficient this will was. Horror 
of her mother, and loathing of her betrothed, 
each repelled her in turn. She seemed to see 
herself praying for mercy to the woman, and she 
coldly refusing to listen ; then flying across the 
stage, and supplicating the man to spare her, 
and he, instead, triumphing with coarse fond- 
ness. Ah, unhappy lady ! with no friend except 
that stout-hearted old squire, shinning by night 
through the Highlands, and dodging sentries at 
risk of a shot, — a shot, that startling trochee, 
sharp ictus , and faint whiz. 

Except for the Majors, — Scrammel to plot, 
Skerrett to execute, — Voltaire’s evasion would 


EDWIN BEOTHEirrOFT. 


16 S 


have been in vain. Edwin Brotliertoft was par- 
alyzed by the news of his daughter’s danger. 

“ What can I do ? ” he said to the old servant, 
bitterly. “ Nothing ! Nothing ! Is General Put- 
nam, just defeated, likely to march down to rescue 
my daughter ? These are not the days of chiv- 
alry. Knights do not come at call, when dam- 
sels are in distress. No ; I am impotent to help 
her. If she cannot help herself, her heart must 
break, as mine has broken. That base woman 
will crush her life, as she crushed mine. Why 
did you come to me ? You have brought me 
news that I may love my daughter, only to make 
the new love a cause of deeper misery. Why 
did you tell me of this insult to her woman- 
hood ? I had enough to endure before. Go ! 
What can I say to her ? She will not care for a 
futile message, 4 that I love her, but can do 
nothing.’ Some stronger head than mine might 
devise a plan. Some stronger heart might dare. 
But I have given up. I am a defeated man, — a 
broken-hearted man, living from day to day, 
and incompetent to vigor. I remember my- 
self another person. I sometimes feel the old 
fire stir and go out. But I can do nothing. 
My fate and my daughter’s fate are one. Go, 
Voltaire, and leave me to my utter sorrow and 
despair ! ” 

He had but just dismissed the negro, and 


164 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


turned a despondent back upon the world, — 
when lo ! Peter Skerrett, as we saw him, comes 
forth. Here comes the Captor of Captives, the 
Hero of Ballads ! Here come chivalry, youth, 
ardor, force, confidence, success, all in a body, 
— a regiment of victor traits in one man, and 
on that man’s lip The Moustache, the best 
in the Continental army. Here comes a man 
whose timepiece has never learnt to mark “ Too 
late.” Here he comes, and he has made it his 
business to eliminate Kerr from the problem of 
Brothertoft Manor ; so that Kerr -f- Lucy = Bliss 
will be for a time an impossible equation. 

Take courage, then, Edwin Brothertoft, tender 
of heart, sick at will, and thank Heaven that 
you married your gunstock to the brainpan of 
that British beggar with a baggonet at Bunker 
Hill, and so saved Skerrett to help you. 

Voltaire’s story, with additions and improve- 
ments, now ends, and business proceeds. 


VII. 


fc< After this history, I want a little topog- 
raphy,” said Skerrett. “ Can you sketch me 
a ground plan of the house?” 

That skeleton, Brothertoft could draw with- 
out much feeling. The house, as it stood, com- 
plete in the background of memory, he would 
not allow himself to recall. Its walls and fur- 
niture were to him the unshifted scenes and 
properties of a tragedy. If he painted them 
before his mind’s eye, an evil-omened figure of 
a woman would step from behind the curtain, 
threatening some final horror, to close the drama 
of their lives. 

“ This wing to the right,” Skerrett said, “ seems 
an addition.” 

“ It was built on by the present proprietress,” 
coldly rejoined the former heir. 

“ Stables here ! ” continued the Major, tracing 
the plan. “ Dining-room windows open toward 
them. Shrubbery here, not too far off for an 
ambush. Now, Voltaire, if we could get Major 
Kerr alone in that dining-room in the dusk 


166 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


of the evening to-morrow, I could walk him off 
easily.” 

“ Ho ! ” exclaims the butler. “ That ’s all 
settled beforehand.” 

“ Kerr sometimes makes late sittings there, 
then? I fancied I knew his habits.” 

“ He ’s a poor hand at courtin’,” says Vol- 
taire, with contempt. “ Ladies likes dewotion, — 
that ’s my ’sperience. He ’s only dewoted to 
fillin’ hisself full of wine.” 

“ A two-bottle man ? ” 

“ Every day, when the ladies leave table, he rubs 
his hands,” — Voltaire imitates, — “and says, 
1 Now then, old boy, fresh bottle ! Yellow-seal ! 
Don’t shake him ! ’ He drinks that pretty slow, 
and gives me a glass and says, ‘ Woolly-liead, 
we ’ll drink my pretty Lucy. Lucky Kerr’s 
pretty bride ! ’” 

Peter Skerrett here looked ferocious. 

“ Then,” continued the old fellow, “ he drops 
off asleep at the table till four o’clock. Then 
he wakes up, sour, and sings out,” — Voltaire imi- 
tates, — “ ‘ Hullo, you dam nigger ! Look sharp ! 
Another bottle ! If you shake him, I ’ll cut your 
black heart out.’ He drinks him, and then 
byme-by he says, ‘ Ole fel ! Slimore wide, ole 
fel. Tuther boddle dow ! I ashkitspusf onle 
favor, ole fel ! ’ Then he sings a little, and gets 
generally accelerated.” 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


1GT 


“ I would rather have him slowed, than ac- 
celerated,’ ’ says Peter. 

“ Oho ! ” grinned the butler, and whispered 
to himself, “ If the Major thinks he ought to 
be stupid-tipsy for the good of the cause and 
Miss Lucy, I can deteriorate him, into his Ma- 
deira, with a little drop of our French Gutter de 
Rosy brandy. That will take the starch out of 
his legs, and make him easy to handle. B.ut that 
is my business. I won’t tell nobody my secrets. 
The pantry and I must keep dark.” 

“ I cannot help a grain of compunction in 
this matter,” Skerrett said. “ A gentleman 
does not like to interfere in another man’s 
courtship.” 

“ Do you call this plot of a coarse man with 
an unmotherly woman by the fair name of court- 
ship ? ” Brothertoft said. 

“ No. And fortunately the lady has no illu- 
sions. I should not like to be the one to tell 
Beauty she had loved Beast. But this Beauty, 
it seems, has kept her heart too pure to have 
lost her fine maidenly instinct of aversion to a 
blackguard. Well, no more metaphysics ! Scru- 
ples be hanged. Kerr don’t deserve to be treated 
like a gentleman. England should have kept 
such fellows at home, if she wanted us to believe 
good manners were possible under a monarchy. 
Now, then, Mr. Brothertoft, suppose I do not 


168 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


get myself ‘hanged as one espy/ and take my 
prisoner, — does his capture protect your daugh- 
ter enough ? ” 

“ I could wish, if it were possible, to have her 
with me henceforth.” 

“ We must make it possible, though it com- 
plicates matters. I could rush in, snatch Kerr, 
and be off. The blow would be struck, the 
enemy annoyed, our people amused; but in a 
fortnight Clinton would offer some Yankee major 
and a brace of captains to boot for his Adjutant, 
the Honorable, &c. Then he would go down and 
play Beast to Beauty again.” 

“ Save my daughter, once for all ; if it can be 
done.” 

“ I ’ll try. Now, Yoltaire, listen ! ” 

Which he opened his mouth to do. 

“ What people, besides the two ladies and 
Major Kerr, will be at your house to-morrow 
evening, — the servants, I mean?” 

“ Oh ! we live small at the Manor, now, — 
ridiculous small. It ’s war times now. Rents 
is n’t paid. When we want a proper lot of ser- 
vants, we takes clodhoppers.” 

“ Lucky for my plans you do live small,” 
Skerrett said. “ Never mind your family pride ! 
Name the household ! ” 

“ Me and Sappho and Plato, all patriots ; 
Jierck Dewitt’s wife and her sister, Sally Bilsby, 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


169 


both Tories, — that is, gals that likes redcoats 
more than is good for ’em.” 

“ Could you manage to have the girls out of 
the way to-morrow evening ? ” 

“ Easy enough. They ’ll be glad to get away 
for a frolic.” 

“Any horses in your stable, Voltaire ? ” 

“ Six, — all out of that Harriet Heriot mare 
stock. You remember, Master Edwin.” 

Edwin Brothertoft did sadly remember the late 
old Sam Galsworthy’s generous offer. He re- 
membered sadly that ride, so many years ago, 
and how the sweet south winds, laden with the 
rustle of tropic palms, met him with fair omen, 
— ah ! long ago, when Faith was blind and Hope 
was young ! 

“ Six white horses,” Voltaire continued ; “ the 
four carriage-horses, Madam’s horse, and Miss 
Lucy’s mare, — you ought to see Miss Lucy on 
her!” 

“ Perhaps I shall. Tell Plato to give the mare 
another oat to-morrow ! Her mistress may want 
a canter in the evening, — eh, V oltaire ? ” 

Grin in response. 

“ Tell Miss Brothertoft, with her father’s best 
love,” Skerrett resumed, “ that he will be on 
the lawn by the dining-room window to-morrow 
evening at nine o’clock, waiting for her to ride 
with him to Fishkill. Tell her to be brave, pru 
8 


1T0 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


dent, and keep out of sight with a headache, 
until she is called to start. And you, Voltaire, 
as you love her, be cautious, be secret and be 
wide awake ! ” 

At “ be cautious,” the old fellow winked elab- 
orately. At “ be secret,” he locked all four 
eyelids tight. At “ be wide awake,” — snap ! 
eyelids flung open, and white of eye enough 
appeared to dazzle a sharpshooter. 

“ Now, listen, Voltaire ! ” 

Mouth agape, again, as if he had a tympanum 
at each tonsil. 

“ Look at me, carefully ! ” continues Peter. 

Pan shut and eyes a la saucer. 

“ Do you think you would know me disguised 
in a red coat ? ” 

Pan opened to explode, “ Certain sure, sir ! ” 

“ And without my moustache ? ” the major 
asked. 

He gave that feature a tender twirl. His 
fingers wrapped the fair tendrils lovingly around 
them. % 

“ Must it go ? ” he sighed. “ 0 Chivalry ! 
0 Liberty! 0 my Country! what sacrifices you 
demand ! ” 

Voltaire was sure that he would know the 
Hero, even with an emasculated lip. 

“ Well ; about eight to-morrow evening, when 
Major Kerr is ‘ accelerated ’ with his second 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


171 


bottle, I shall knock at your loyal door, — mous- 
tache off, and red coat on — and ask a night’s 
lodging for a benighted British sergeant.” 

“ You shall have it,” says the major-domo, 
with a grand-seigneur manner. 

“ Nothing but apple-jack or Jersey cham- 
pagne has passed these lips, since we lost the 
Brandywine. You will naturally give me my 
bottle of Yellow-seal, and my bite of supper, 
5«i the dining-room with the Major.” 

“ Oh ! ” cried Voltaire with sudden panic. 
u Don’t risk it ! Major Kerr ’s got a sword awful 
long and awful sharp, and two pistols with gold 
handles, plum full of bullets. Every day, when 
he drinks, he puts ’em on the sideboard, an’ he 
sav, ‘ Lookerheeyar, ole darkey ! spose dam reb- 
ble cum, I stick him, so; an’ I shoot him, so.’ 
Don’t resk it, Mas’r Skerrett ! ” 

(Ancient servitor, suppress thy terror and thy 
Tombigbee together!) 

“ Slip off with the weapons, and hiue ’em in 
your bed,” says the Major. 

“ In my bed ? ” says Voltaire, in good Conti- 
nental again. “ In our feather bed ? Suppose 
Sappho goes to lie down, and touches cold iron, 
wont she take on scollops, high ? ” 

“ The poetess must not be taught to strike 
a jangling lyre. Give the tools to Plato. Set 
him on guard at the dining-room door when 


172 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


I come. Tell him he is serving a model Re* 
public, — such as his ancient namesake never 
dreamed.” 

Brothertoft smiled at these classical allusions. 
Lively talk was encouraging him, as his junior 
meant it should. 

Neither foresaw what a ghastly mischief was 
to follow tliis arming of Plato. 


VIII. 


“ Now, Voltaire, the sooner you are on your 
way back, to warn and comfort your young 
lady, the better,” said Skerrett. “ I ’m sorry 
for your shins among the Highlands by night.” 

“ Never mind my shins,” Voltaire replied 
with a martyr air. “ They belong to my coun- 
try and Miss Lucy.” 

He passed his hand tenderly along their curvi- 
linear edges, as if he were feeling a scymitar, 
before a blow. They were sadly nicked, poor 
things ! They would be lacerated anew, as he 
brandished them at the briers, and smote with 
them the stumps along his twenty-mile ana- 
basis. 

“ Farewell, my trump of trumps,” said the 
Major. “ Remember ; be cautious, be secret, be 
wide awake ! ” 

Same pantomime as before in reply. 

“ If Mrs. Brothertoft suspects anything, there 
will be tragedy,” Peter continued. 

So all three knew, and shuddered to think. 

“I will walk a little way with my friend,” 


174 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


Baid Brothertoft, “I have a more hopeful mes- 
sage now to send to my dear child.” 

Peter watched the two contrasted figures until 
they disappeared in the glow of the many-col- 
ored forest. 

“ Lovely old gentleman ! ” he thought. “ Yes ; 
‘ lovely ’ is the word. My first encounter with 
a broken heart. It has stopped my glee for a 
long time to come. I have felt tears in my 
eyes, all the while, and only kept them down 
by talking low comedy with the serio-comic 
black personage. Can a broken heart be mended ? 
That is always woman’s work, I suppose. In 
this case, too, woman broke, woman must re- 
pair. The daughter must make over what the 
wife spoilt. She shall be saved for his sake and 
ner own, even if I come out of the business 
an amputated torso. I don’t quite comprehend 
people that cannot help themselves. But here 
I see the fact, — there are such. And I sup- 
pose exuberant chaps, like myself, are put in 
the world to help them. I wonder whether 
any woman will break my heart! I wonder 
whether Miss Lucy liked any of our fellows, 
and had a hero in her eye to make Kerr look 
more caitiff than he is. Could not be Scram- 
mel, — he is a sneak. Could not be Radi^re, — 
he is too dyspeptic. Nor Humphreys, — too pom- 
pous. Nor Livingston, — he is not sentimental 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


175 


enough. Nor Skerrett, — him she has never 
seen and will see with his moustache off. Ah ! 
the Chief was right when he told me I should 
put my foot into some adventure up here. And 
now the thing is started, I must set it moving.” 

He walked toward Jierck Dewitt, still on 
guard at the gate. His relief was just coming 
up, and the sentry was at liberty. 

“ Did you know those two men I was talking 
with, by the well, Jierck ? ” Peter asked. 

“ Yes, sir ; Sergeant Lincoln and Lady Broth- 
ertoft’s factotum. I ’d like to know what old 
Voltaire wanted here.” 

“ He does not recognize the ex-Patroon,” Sker- 
rett thought. “ Then no one will. Jierck’s eyes 
always saw a little lighter in the dark, and a 
little steadier in a glare, than the next man’s. 
Sorrow must have clapped a thick mask on my 
friend’s face.” 

“ I suppose you know the Brothertoft Manor 
country and the Manor-House thoroughly, 
Jierck,” the Major said. 

•* Know the Manor, sir ! I should think so. 
I began with chasing tumble-bugs and crickets 
over it, and studied it inch by inch. Then I 
trailed black-snakes and ran rabbits, and got to 
know it rod. by rod. I ’ve fished in every brook, 
and dumb every nut-tree, and poked into every 
woodcock swamp or patridge brush from end 


176 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


to end of it. I know it, woodland and clearing, 
side-hill and swale, fields that grow stun and 
fields that grow corn. I ’ve run horses over it, 
where horses is to be run, — and that ’s not 
much, for its awful humpy country, and boul- 
ders won’t stay put anywheres. Deer, too, — 
there ain’t many pieces of woods on it where 1 
have n’t routed out deers, and when they legged 
for the Highlands, I legged too, and come to 
know the Highlands just as well. I used to love, 
when I was a boy, to go along on the heights 
above the river, and pick out places where I was 
going to live ; but I sha’n’t live in any of ’em 
now. What does a man care about home, or 
living at all, when his woman is n’t true ? ” 

Major Skerrett did not interrupt this burst of 
remembrances. “ Jierck suffers as much in his 
way,” he thought, “ as the ex-Patroon.” “ And 
the house,” he said, “ you know that as thor- 
oughly ? ” 

“ Ay, from garret to cellar. My father, 
Squire Dewitt, has been in England, and he 
says it ’s more like an English house than any 
he knows, in small. From garret to cellar, says 
I. The cellar I ought to know pretty well. I 
dodged in there once, when I was a boy, bangin’ 
round the house ; and got into the. wine-room, 
and drank stuff that came near spoilin’ my taste 
for rum forever, — I wish it had. They caught 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


177 


me, and the Madam had me whipped till the 
blood come. Mr. Brothertoft tried to beg off for 
me. She ’d got not to make much of him by 
that time, and the more he begged, the harder 
she had ’em lay it on me. But I ’m talkin’ off, 
stiddy as the North River, and you ’ve got some- 
thing to say to me, Major, I know, by the way 
you look. What ’s up about Brothertoft Ma- 
nor ? ” 

“ There ’s a British officer staying there, who 
has never tasted pork and beans. I ’ve prom- 
ised General Putnam to bring him up here to 
dinner.” 

“ Hooray ! that ’s right. Give these militia 
something to think about, or they get to believe 
war ’s like general trainin’-day, and they can cut 
for home when they ’re tired. You want volun- 
teers. I ’m one.” 

“ I counted on you for my lieutenant. Ser- 
geant Lincoln also goes. Now I want three men 
more, and you shall choose them. Each man 
must have the grit of a hundred ; and they must 
know the country as well as they know the way 
to breakfast. Name three, Jierck ! ” 

“ That I ’ll do, bang. There ’s Ike Van Wart, 
for one. His junto, him and Jack Paulding and 
Dave Williams, would just make the three. But 
Jack ’s nabbed, and down to York in a prison- 
ship. And Dave ’s off on furlough, sowing his 
8 * 


178 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


father’s winter wheat for the Cowboys to tromp 
next summer.” 

Only Isaac Yan Wart, therefore, of that fa- 
mous trio, whom the Muse of Tradition shall 
fondly nickname 

Major Andre’s Bootjack, 

joined Skerrett on his perilous service. 

“Ike for one,” continued Dewitt. “Well, 
Galsworthy, old Sam Galsworthy, for two. And 
for three, I don’t believe a better man lives 
than Hendrecus Canady, the root-doctor’s son. 
They ’re all Brothertoft-Manor boys, built of 
the best cast-steel, and strung with the wiriest 
kind of wire. Shoot bullets into ’em, stick bag- 
gonets into ’em ; they don’t mind the bullets any 
more than spit-balls at school, nor the baggonets 
more than witches do pins.” 

“ Well, Jierck, have them here in an hour. I 
will join you, and talk the trip over, and we will 
be ready to start at sunset.” 

Skerrett found himself a horse, trotted back 
to Fishkill, wrote a farewell to his step-brother 
and his mother, and scratched a few irrepres- 
sible lines to Washington, such as the hero loved 
to get from his boys, and valued much more than 
lumbering despatches marked Official. The de- 
spatches only announced facts, good or bad. The 
brisk, gallant notes revealed spirits which black 


EDWIN BROTHEP.TOFT. 


179 


facts could not darken, nor heavy facts depress. 
“ So long as I have lads like Peter Skerrett,” 
thought Our George, by the grace of God Pater 
Patriae , when he received this note, a fortnight 
after that cup-lip-and-slip battle of Germantown, 
“ while I have such lads with me, I can leave my 
red paint in my saddle-bags with my Tuscarora 
grammar.” 

“ Now,” thought Peter, “ I have made my will 
and written my despatch, I must proceed to 
change myself into a redcoat.” 

He unpacked a British sergeant’s uniform, 
which lie had carried, if disguise should be 
needed in his late solitary journey. 

“ There is a garment,” said he, holding up the 
coat with an air of respect, “ whose pockets have 
felt the King’s shilling. But thy pockets, old 
buff and blue! ” — he stripped off his own coat, 
— “ never knew bullion, though often stuffed 
with Continental paper at a pistareen the pound 
avoirdupois.” 

His weather-beaten scarlets were much too 
small for the tall champion. By spasm and 
pause, and spasm again, however, he managed 
to squeeze into them at last. 

Then he took Mrs. Birdsell’s little equilateral 
triangle of mirror, three inches to a side, and, 
holding it off at arm’s length, surveyed himself 
by sections. 


180 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


“The color don’t suit my complexion,” he 
said, viewing his head and neck. “ The coat 
will not button over my manly chest, and I shall 
have to make it fast with a lanyard,” — here he 
took a view of the rib-region. “ The tails are 
simply ridiculous,” — he twisted about to bring 
the glass to bear upon them. “ In short,” — and 
he ran the bit of mirror up and down, — “I am 
a scarecrow, cap d pie. Liberty herself would 
not know me. Pretty costume to go and see a 
lady in ! Confound women ! Why will wives 
break husband’s hearts ? Why will girls grow 
up beauties and heiresses, and become baits for 
brutes? Ah, Miss Lucy Brothertoft! You do 
not know what an inglorious rig Peter Skerrett 
's submitting to for your sake. And the worst 
is to come. Alas ! the worst must come ! ” 

He hoisted the looking-glass and gazed for a 
moment irresolutely at his face. 

There, in its accustomed place, sat The Mous- 
tache, blonde in color, heroic in curl, under- 
scoring his firm nose, pointing and adorning the 
handsome visage. 

Skerrett gazed, sighed, and was silent. 

Nerve him, Liberty ! Steel him, Chivalry ! 

A hard look crept over his countenance. 

He clutched a short blade, pointless ; but with 
an edge trenchant as wit. 

It was a razor. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


181 


Slash ! And one wing of The Moustache was 
swept from the field. 

Behold him, trophy in hand and miserable 
that he has won it! 

Will resolution carry him through a second 
assault ? Or will he go one-sided ; under one 
nostril a golden wreath, under the other, bristles, 
for a six-month ? 

Slash ! The assassination is complete. 

His lip is scalped. All is bald between his 
nose and mouth. The emphasis is subtracted 
from his countenance. His upper lip, no longer 
kept in place by its appropriate back-load, now 
flies up and becomes seamed with wrinkles. 

And there on the table lay The Moustache ! 

There they lay, — the right flank and the left 
flank, side by side in their old posture, — the 
mere exuviae of a diminished hero. 

Peter turned away weakly as a Samson 
shorn. 

“All, Liberty ! Ah, Chivalry ! ” he moaned. 
“ Will the good time to come make a sacred 
relic of these yellow tufts ? ” 

Tradition reports that his hostess found them, 
and buried them, in an old tinder-box, in the 
Fishkill village graveyard, where they sleep 
among other exuviae, arms, legs, torsos, and 
bodies of the heroes of that time. 

And now it may be divined why De Chaste) 


182 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


lux does not immortalize the Skerrett Mous- 
tache. Perhaps Peter kept his lip in mourning 
until after the surrender of Cornwallis. Per- 
haps, alas ! they never grew again. 

“It will take gallons on gallons of this Octo- 
oer to put me in good spirits again,” says the 
Major, as he rode away. 

The mellow air, all sweetness, all sparkle, and 
till perfume, flowed up to his lips, generously. 
Se breathed, and breathed, and breathed again 
of that free tap, and by the time he reached the 
rendezvous was buoyant as ever. 

The Orderly, Brothertoft, was awaiting him 
and sat patient, but no longer despondent, look 
ing through the bulky Highlands, as if they 
were the mountains of a dream. 

Jierck Dewitt and his Three were skylarking 
in a pumpkin patch. Twenty years ago we 
saw the same three, straddling and spurring 
tombstones in the Brothertoft Manor graveyard, 
the day of the last Patroon’s funeral, — the day 
when Old Van Courtlandt made a Delphic 
Apollo of him, and foretold, amid general clink 
of glasses, that marriage of white promise and 
black performance. 

“ The child is father of the man ” ; and the 
four boys have grown up as their fathers’ chil- 
dren should. 

Jierck Dewitt has already shown himself, and 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT 


183 


related why he is not fully up to his mark of 
manliness. 

When he caught sight of Major Skerrett, he 
dropped a yellow bomb, charged with possible 
pumpkin-pies, which he was about to toss at 
the head of one of his men, and marched the 
file up to be reviewed by its leader. 

“ Number one is Ike Van Wart, Major,” says 
Jierck- “ His eyes are peeled, if there ’s any 
eyes got their bark off in the whole Thirteen.” 

Ike touched his cocked hat — it was his only 
bit of uniform — and squared shoulders to be 
looked at. 

He was a lank personage, of shrewd, but rather 
sanctimonious visage. War made him a scout. 
Fate appointed him one prong of Major Andre’s 
Bootjack. But Elder and Chorister were writ- 
ten on his face ; and he died Elder and Choris- 
ter of the First Presbyterian Church of Green- 
burgh, in Westchester. 

“ Right about face, Ike ! ” says Jierck. “ For- 
rud march, Old Sam Galsworthy ! He ’s grit, if 
grit grows. His only fault is he ’s too good- 
natured to live.” 

Old Sam stood forward, and laughed. As he 
laughed, the last button flew off his uniform 
coat. It was much too lean a coat for one of 
his increasing diameter, and the exit of that 
final button had long been merely a question 


184 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


of time. Hearty Old Sam may be best de- 
scribed by pointing to his descendants, who in 
our day are the identical Sam, repeated. Under 
thirty, they drive high-stepping bays in the wag- 
ons of the great Express Companies. They wear 
ruddy cheeks, chinny beards, natty clothes, 
blue caps with a gilt button ; and rattle their 
drags through from Flatten Barrack, up Broad- 
way and back, at 2 P. M., without hitting a 
hub or cursing a carter. Everybody says Old 
Sam is too good-natured to live ! But he does 
live and thrive, and puts flesh on his flesh, and 
dollars on his ] il 3. Over thirty, he marries, 
as becomes a Galsworthy, buys acres up the 
river, raises red-cheeked apples and children, 
breeds high-stepping bays, and when he takes 
his annual nag to the Bull’s Head for sale, 
the knowing men there make bets, and win 
them, that Old Squire Sam weighs at least two 
hundred and forty pounds witli his coat off. 

“ Right about face, Sam ! ” says the fugleman. 
“Forrud march, Hen drecus Canady ! He looks 
peaked, Major. His father ’s a root and Injun 
doctor, and he never had much but pills to eat, 
until he ran off and joined the army. But I 
stump the whole Thirteen to show me a wirier 
boy, or a longer head. He ’ll be in Congress be- 
fore he says 4 Die ’ through that nose of liis’n.” 

Hendrecus Canady in turn toed the mark foi 


EDWIN BROTHEIiTOFT. 


185 


inspection. He had a sallow, potticary face. A 
meagre yellow down on his cheeks grew to a 
point at his chin. But he is neatly dressed in 
half-uniform. He has a keen look, which will 
say, “ Stand and deliver your fact ! ” to every 
phenomenon. He will, indeed, talk through his 
nose, until his spirit passes by that exit to climes 
where there are no noses to twang by. But wiry 
men must be had when states need bracing. 
And the root-doctor’s runaway son was M. C. 
long before his beak intoned his Nunc dimittis. 

“ Now, boys,” said Skerrett, “ I like your looks, 
and I like what Captain Jierck st/s of you. You 
know what we Ye got to do, and know it must 
be done. You ’ll travel, scattering, according to 
Jierck’s orders, and rendezvous before moon-rise 
at his father’s barn on the Manor. Sergeant 
Lincoln goes with me. Jierck will name a place 
where he ’ll meet me at sunrise. We shall have 
all day to-morrow to see how the land lies, and 
the night to do our job in. Now, then, shake 
hands round, and go ahead ! ” 


PART III 





I 


For the first time in her life Lucy Brothertoft 
failed to kiss her mother on the morning of the 
dinner to Sir Henry Clinton. 

A great pang went to the guilty woman’s 
heart. 

She perceived that her daughter knew her at 
last. 

Ah, miserable woman ! She did not dare turn 
her great black eyes reproachfully upon Lucy, 
and demand the omitted caress. 

She did not dare say tenderly, “ What, my 
daughter, are you forgetting me?” 

She did not dare go forward and press her 
own unworthy lips to those virgin lips. 

For one instant a great tumult of love and 
remorse stirred within her. She longed to fling 
herself on her knees before her daughter, to 
bury her face in Lucy’s lap, and there, with 
tears and agony, cry out : — 

“ 0 my child ! pity me, do not hate me, for 
the lie I have been. Ah ! you do not know the 
misery of wearing an undetected falsehood in 


190 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


the heart! You do not know the torture of 
hypocrisy. You do not know how miserably 
base it is to be loved for what you are not, — 
to be trusted as a true and loyal heart, when 
every moment of such false pretence is another 
film of falsehood over the deep-seated lie. You 
cannot know how we tacit liars long for be- 
trayal, while we shrink and shudder when it 
approaches ! 

“ And you, my gentle daughter, have been my 
vengeance. Listen to me now! The old pride 
breaks. The old horror passes. I confess. Be- 
fore you, the very image of my husband in his 
young and hopeful days, I confess my shameful 
sin. 1 have been a foul wife and a false mother. 
Do not scorn me, Lucy. I have suffered, and 
shall suffer till I die. 

“ Ah ! thank Heaven, my child, that you do 
not feel and cannot divine half my degradation. 
My agony you see, — let it be the lesson of your 
life! Here I hide my face, and dare to recall 
that brave and noble lover, your father. So 
gentle he was, so tender, so utterly trustful! 
And I was mean enough to think he triumphed 
over me because his soul was fine, and mine was 
coarse. So I took my coarse revenge. 

“ 0 fool, fool ! that I could not comprehend 
that pure and lofty nature. 0 base ! that I 
must grovel and rank myself with the base. 0 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


191 


cruel l tliat I must trample upon him. 0 das- 
tardly ! for the unwomanly sneers, for the stud- 
ied insults, by which I bore him down, and broke 
at last that high, chivalric heart. It seems to 
me that I was not sane, but mad all those misera- 
ble years. 

“ But now, my daughter, see me weep ! I 
repent. My soul repents and loathes this guilty 
woman here. I have spoken, I have told you 
fully what I am. I look up. I see your father’s 
patient, pitying glance upon your face. Speak, 
with his voice, and say I may be slowly pardoned, 
if my penitence endures. And kiss me, Lucy ! 
not my tainted lips ; but kiss my forehead with 
a kiss of peace ! ” 

Such a wild agony of love and remorse stirred 
within this wretched woman’s heart. 

But she battled it down, down, down. 

The virago in her struck the woman to the 
earth, and throttled her. No yielding. No 
tears. No repentance. She scorned the medi- 
cine of shame. 

Lucy’s presence cowed her. She did not 
dare look at that gentle, earnest face, except 
covertly, and as an assassin looks. 

The Furies, her old companions, thickened 
about her, like a mist pregnant with forms. 
There was a whispering in the air. Did others 
see those shadowy images? Did others hear 


192 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT 


their words ? To her they were loud and 
emphatic. “ Stab the meek-faced girl ! Be rid 
of this spy ! Shall she sit there and shame 
you?” — so the Furies whispered and shouted. 
And the woman replied within herself : “ Am 
I not stabbing her? See, here is my hired 
bravo, my future son-in-law, the very Honor- 
able Major Kerr, — le bel homme ! He will give 
the puny thing troubles of her own to mind. 
We will see whether she is always to stay so 
meek and patient. We will see whether these 
Brothertofts are so much better than other 
people. She has learnt to suspect me at last. 
I knew the time would come, and I have made 
ready for it. Day after to-morrow they are to 
be married, and then I shall be rid of Miss 
Monitress.” 

With such passions at work, breakfast at 
Brothertoft, on the morning of Putnam’s Coun- 
cil, and the dinner to Clinton, was not a very 
cheerful meal. Mother and daughter were silent. 
Kerr took his cue, and played knife and fork. 


1 1 . 


Lucy left the room immediately after break- 
fast. 

“ My pretty Lucy seems to have the megrims ,” 
said Major Kerr. “ Is that on the cards for a 
blushing bride ? ” 

“ She sighs for the hour when Adonis shall 
name her his,” replied the mother, with a half- 
sneer. 

“ Confound it, Madam ! I believe you are 
laughing at me,” the blowsy Adonis grumbled. 

He lifted himself from the table, and swaggered 
off to the fire, with a gorged movement. He 
probably had never seen a turkey-buzzard loun- 
ging away from carrion ; but he unconsciously 
imitated that unattractive fowl. 

The debris of his meal, the husks of what he 
did eat, remained in an unpleasant huddle on 
the table, proving that a great, gross feeder had 
been there. 

He stood before the fire, a big red object, the 
type of many Englishmen who were sent over in 
the Revolution to disenchant us with monarchy. 

O M 


194 


EDWIN BKOTHERTOFT. 


The chances are nearly ten to one in favor of 
an Englishman’s being a gentleman. Our moth- 
er country seemed to have carefully decimated 
her civil and military service of its brutes, to do 
the dirty work of flogging the Continentals. 

Kerr stood before the fi re, making a picture ol 
himself. 

A handsomisli animal ! Other women might 
call him le bel homme without Mrs. Brother- 
toft’s tone of contempt. He had evidently giv- 
en the artists of the alcoholic school — Brandy 
and that brotherhood — frequent sittings. They 
paint rubicund, and had not been chary of car- 
nations in his case. His red uniform-jacket 
gave him the air of an overgrown boy. But not 
a frank, merry one ; nor even an oafish, well- 
meaning dolt of a chap. This great boy is a 
bully. Smaller urchins would suffer under his 
thumb. He would crush a butterfly, or, indeed, 
anything gentle and tender, without much cere- 
mony. 

So Mrs. Brothertoft seemed to think, as she 
surveyed him, posed there for inspection. 

She smiled to herself, and thought, “ This 
sensual tyrant will presently give Miss Lucy 
something else to do than insult me with her 
prudish airs.” 

“ Dash it, Ma’am ! ” Kerr repeated, — his caste, 
in his time, dashed freely, — “ do you mean to 
hint the girl is not fond of me ? ” 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


195 


u Fond ! she adores you. See how jealous she 
is ! She cannot leave you one moment.” 

“ I ’d have you to know, Madam, with your 
sneers, that better blood than your daughter 
have been fond of me.” 

“ Why did n’t Adonis stay in the home market, 
then, instead of putting himself in the Provin- 
cial?” 

“You know why ! I don’t make any secret 
of my debts and my peccadillos. You know as 
much about me as I do about you, my mother- 
in-law.” 

She winced a little at this coarse familiarity. 
It was part of her inevitable punishment to be so 
treated. Ah ! how bitterly she remembered, at 
such words, the reverent courtesy of her hus- 
band ! how bitterly, his pitying tenderness, even 
when she had dishonored him, so far as his honor 
was in her power ! But she hardened herself 
against these memories, and her vindictiveness 
against that daughter of his grew more cruel. 

“ You must allow,” continued Kerr, “ that 
you get me dem cheap.” 

“ Cheap ! ” she rejoined. “ Cheap with the 
debts and the peccadillos ! Cheap, white feather 
and all ! ” 

“ Who says I ever showed the white feather ? ” 
roared Kerr. “ That ’s one of that muscadin , 
Jack Andre’s lies. He wants my place as Adju- 


196 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


taut to Sir Henry. Bali ! the shop-keeping, play- 
acting, rhyme-writing milksop ! he ’d better keep 
his Swiss jaws shut, and not slander a British 
nobleman ! ” 

“ Nobleman ! ” says his hostess, evidently tak- 
ing pleasure in galling her conspirator ; “ I 

thought you were only a peer’s third son.” 

“ There are but three lives between me and 
the earldom, — an old gouty life, Tom’s jockey 
life, and Dick’s drunken one. Your daughter 
will be Countess of Bendigli one of these days, 
and you ’d both better be careful how you treat 
me.” 

“ How could I treat you better ? ” I give you 
the prettiest girl in the Province, with the pret- 
tiest portion.” 

“ Have I got to tell you again, that not every 
man would take your daughter ? You need n’t 
look so fierce about it.” 

She did look fierce. She looked — la belle 
sauvage — as if she could handle a scalping-knife. 
And no wonder ! This was not very pretty 
talk on either side. 

It was not very pretty work they had plotted. 
Hate must have become very bitter in the moth- 
er’s heart before she chose this brute and booby 
for her daughter’s husband. She did not even 
perceive the dull spark of a better nature, not 
utterly quenched in him, — gross, dissolute, over- 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


197 


bearing, heavy, that he was. She wished to be 
rid of Lucy Brothertoft, — this was the first 
thing. If, besides, she got an ally on the royalist 
side, and a son-in-law who could help her to a 
place in society in England, it was clear gain. 

But enough of this conspiracy ! 

Will the father and that young rebel sans 
moustache be bold and speedy enough to de* 
feat it? 


III. 


Place aux heros ! 

To-day the lady of Brothertoft Manor dines 
Sir Henry Clinton and suite. 

If General Putnam should ever march back, 
and blame her that she gave aid and comfort 
to the enemy, she will say that she was forced 
to protect herself by a little sham hospitality. 

It may be sham, but it is liberal. Sappho 
contributes her most faithful soup. The river 
gives a noble sturgeon, — and “ Albany beef,” 
treated as turbot, with sauce blanche, is fish 
for anybody’s fork. The brooks supply trouts 
by the bushel. The Highlands have provided 
special venison for this festival. The Manor kills 
its fatted calf, its sweetest mutton, its spright- 
liest young turkey, fed on honeydew grasshop- 
pers. There is a plum-pudding big as a pumpkin. 
Alas that no patriot palate will vibrate to the 
passing love-taps of these substantial good things ! 

All is ready, and Lady Brothertoft — so she 
loves to be called — awaits her distinguished 
guests, in her grandest attire. 


EDWIN BROTH ERT0FT. 


199 


But, calm and stately as she sits, there is now 
miserable panic and now cruel hate in her heart ; 
for all the time she is whispering to herself. 

“ Lucy did not kiss me. It is the first time 
in all her life. Edwin Brothertoft’s daughter 
has discovered at last what I am. Did he come 
in a dream and tell her?” 

Then she would raise her eyes as far as those 
fair hands lying in her daughter’s lap, — no 
higher, no higher, or the daughter would face 
her, — and think of the wedding-ring that her 
plot is presently to force upon one of those 
locked fingers. She could hardly keep back a 
scream of wild triumph at the thought. 

So the mother sits and holds her peace, such 
as it is. The daughter waits in a strange dream 
of patience. Major Kerr swaggers about, admires 
his legs, feels embarrassed before his mute be- 
trothed, looks at his watch and grumbles, u It’s 
half-past two. Dinner’s three, sharp. The 
soup will be spoiled if they don’t show pres- 
ently.” 

They begin to show now upon the quarter- 
decks of the three frigates in the river. The 
guests, in full bloom of scarlet and gold, come 
up from cabin and ward -room of the Tartar, the 
Preston, and the Mercury. Jack on the fore- 
castle has his joke, as each new figure struts 
forth, dodging whatever would stain or flavor 


200 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


him tarry. The belated men call to their ser- 
vants, “Bear a hand there, you lubber, with 
the flour for my hair-powder! How the devil 
did that spot come on my coat-sleeve ! Why the 
devil did n’t you have these ruffles starched ? ” 
The last man now struggles into his tightest 
Hessians. The last man draws on his silk stock- 
ings. The last mans his pumps. Sir Henry 
Clinton comes out with Commodore Hotham. 
The captain’s gig has been swinging half an 
hour in the shade of the frigate’s hull. Pre- 
sent arms, sentry at the gangway! Here they 
come, down the black side of the ship. Fire 
and feathers, how splendid ! Take care of your 
sword, Sir Henry, or you ’ll trip and get a 
ducking instead of a dinner! They scuttle into 
the stern-sheets. The oarsmen, in their neatest 
holiday rig, scoff* in their hearts, and name 
these great personages “ lobsters ” and “ land- 
lubbers.” The captain’s coxswain, the prettiest 
man of the whole ship’s company, gives the 
word, “ Shove off*! ” Boat-hook shoves, Jack on 
deck peers through the port-holes. A topman, 
aloft, accidentally drops a tarry bit of spunyarn 
and hits Sir Henry on his biggish nose. “ Back 
starboard,” the pretty coxswain orders. “Pull 
port ! ” “ Give way all ! ” And so we go to 
dinner! And so from men-of-war in our time 
heroes go to dinners ashore. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT 


201 


And now the gay party enters the dining- 
room at Brothertoft Manor. 

How bright the sunbeams of the October after- 
noon, ricochetting from the smooth Hudson into 
the windows, gleam on the epaulets and but- 
tons of a dozen gorgeous officers! One special 
ray is clearly detailed to signalize that star on 
Sir Henry Clinton’s left breast. The room is 
aflame with scarlet. Certainly these flamboyant 
heroes will presently consume away every ves- 
tige of a rebel army. Surely, after a parry or 
two against these dress swords, the champions 
of freedom will drop their points and yield their 
necks to the halter. Each elaborate fine gen- 
tleman, too, of all this bandboxy company, is 
crowned with victor bays. They plucked them 
only t’ other day across the river on the ram- 
parts of Forts Clinton and Montgomery. When 
Jack Burgoyne sends down his bunch of laurel 
from Saratoga, the whole are to be tied up in 
one big bouquet, and despatched to tickle the 
nose and the heart of Farmer George at Wind- 
sor Castle. 

Sir Henry Clinton — no less — C cesar ipse — * 
hands in the grand hostess, and takes his seat 
at her right. How jolly he looks, the fat little 
man ! How his round face shines, and his pro- 
tuberant nose begins to glow with inhaling the 
steam of the feast! 


202 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


“ I must have you on my left, Admiral,’’ says 
the hostess, to a hearty gentleman in naval uni- 
form. 

“ Thank you for my promotion, Madam,” re- 
joins Commodore Hotham, dropping into his 
place. 

At the head of her table, then, sits Lady 
Brothertoft, proud and handsome, flanked by 
the two chiefs. And down on either side the 
guests dispose themselves in belaurelled vista. 

Major Kerr takes the foot of the table. He 
carves well for everybody, and best for himself. 
Two spoonsful of sauce blanche float his choice 
portion of the Albany beef. The liver of the 
turkey he accepts as carver’s perquisites. And 
when he comes to cut the saddle of venison, 
plenty of delicate little scraps, quite too small to 
offer to others, find their way to his plate. 

Lucy is at his right. What ? in high spirits ? 
in gay colors ? Has she so soon become a hypo- 
crite and conspiratress ? Why, the little dissem- 
bler laughs merrily, and flirts audaciously ! 
Laughs merrily ! Ah ! there are bitter tears 
just beneath that laugh ! If you call toler- 
ating compliments from that young Captain at 
her right flirting, then she is flirting, and so con- 
ceals her disgust of her betrothed. 

And who is that young Captain ? He stole 
Into the chair at Lucy’s right, and began to talk 


EDWKK BiiorHERTOFT. 


203 


sentiment bofore he nad had his soup. Who is 
this fine ^Aleman of twenty-six, with the oval 
face, the regular features, the slightly supercil- 
ious mouth, the dimpled chin, the hair so care- 
fully powdered and queued ? Who is this ele- 
gant petit maitre ? With what studied gesture 
he airs his ruffles ! How fluently he rattles ! 
How easily he improvises jingle ! He quotes 
French, as if it were his mother-tongue. He 
smiles and sighs like an accomplished lady-killer. 
Who is he ? 

Major Emerick, of the Hessian Chasseurs, 
looks across the table at this gay rattle, and then 
whispers to his own neighbor, Lord Rawdon, 
“ Zee dat dab maggaroni, Chack Antr6 ; how 
he bake lubb co de breddy Lucie ! Bajor Gurr 
will bide off his ’ead breddy sood.” 

“ Kerr may glower and look like a cannibal,” 
Rawdon returned, in a whisper, “ but he will 
not eat Jack AndiA’s head so long as there’s 
any of that venison left.” 

“ I dinkSd Chack was id Bedsylvadia or Cher- 
zey,” says Emerick, wiping that enormous mous- 
tache of his, — a coarse Hessian article, planted 
like a bushy abattis before his mouth. 

“ He was,” replied Rawdon, “ and I don’t see 
how he has been able to get here so soon, unless 
that is his eidolon , his wraith, and moves like the 
ghost in Hamlet. I suppose he heard that Kerr 


204 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


was going to marry the heiress, and there would 
he an Adjutancy looking for an Adjutant, and has 
posted up to offer himself. He did n’t know 1 
was to have it. Jack is in too much hurry to 
be a great man. His vanity will get him into a 
scrape some of these days.” 

So this sentimental Captain is Jack AndrA 
A pretty face ; but there is gallows in it. A 
pretty laced cravat; but the tie has slipped 
ominously round under the left ear. Ah ! Jack, 
Rawdon is right ; thy vanity will be the death of 
thee. Suppose thou hast been jilted by the 
pretty Mrs. R. L. Edgeworth, nee Sneyd, do not 
be over hasty to gain name and fame, that she 
may be sorry she loved the respectable Richard, 
and not thee, flippant Jack. Sink thy shop- 
keeping days ; nobody remembers them against 
thee. Do not try by unsoldierly tricks of brib- 
ery and treachery, and a correspondence after 
the bagman model, to get for thyself the rank of 
Brigadier and the title Sir John. And, Jack, 
take warning that the latitude of Brothertoft 
Manor is unhealthy for thee in the autumn. 
Never come here again, or thy bootjack will 
draw thy boots and find death in them ! Swing- 
ing by the neck is a sorry exit for a petit maitre , 
and it must be annoying to know that, in punish- 
ment for a single shabby act, one’s fame is stand- 
ing forever in the pillory in Westminster Abbey. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


205 


Captain Andrd whispered soft nothings to Lucy. 
And though Kerr glowered truculently, she lis- 
tened, much to the amusement of Emerick and 
Rawdon. Lucky, perhaps, for the daughter, that 
mamma, at the head of the table, did not detect 
this by-play! She might have scented revolt, 
and hastened the marriage. An hour would 
have brought the Tartar’s chaplain ; five minutes 
would have clothed him in his limp surplice, and 
in five more, Lucy, still quelled by the old tyran- 
ny, would have stammered, “ love, honor, and 
obey,” — and “ die.” 

She was not always very attentive to her but- 
terfly companion. 

Sometimes she bent forward, and looked at her 
mother, sitting in all her glory between Army 
and Navy, and the daughter’s cheeks burned 
with shame. She longed to fly away from all 
this splendor, somewhither where she could dwell 
innocently and weep away the infinite sorrow in 
her gentle heart. If she had not been too be- 
wildered by her throng of battling hopes and 
fears within, by the clatter of the feast, and Jack 
Andre’s mischianza of gossip and compliment, 
her notions of right and wrong, of crime and 
punishment, would have become sadly confused. 

Questions did indeed drift across her mind, — 
“How can she sit there so proud and hand- 
some? How can she be so calm and hard? 


206 


EDWIN BROTHERT OFT. 


How can she bear the brunt of all these eyes, 
and lead the talk so vigorously? She wields 
and manages every one about her. They ap- 
plaud her wit. They listen to her suggestions. 
She seems to comprehend these political mat- 
ters better than any of them. Hear Sir Henry 
Clinton, ‘ Madam, if you were Queen of Eng- 
land, these rebel Colonies would soon be taught 
subjection.’ It is half compliment of guest to 
hostess; but more than half truth. For she is 
an imperious, potent woman. And has evil in her 
soul given her this power and this knowledge ? 
Must women sin to be strong? How can she 
sit there, knowing what she knows of herself, 
knowing what is known of her ? She seems to 
triumph. Triumph ! alas ! why is she not away 
in silence and solitude, with a veil over her 
bad beauty, praying to God to forgive her for 
the harm she has done, and for the sin she is ? 
Is such hypocrisy possible ? Or am I deceived ? 
May not she perhaps, perhaps, be worthy ? May 
she not be wise and good? Is it not I who 
am the hypocrite ? May she not mean kindly 
in providing me a man of rank and power as a 
protector in these rude times ? Are not my sus- 
picions the ignorance of a child, — my plots the 
wicked struggles of a rebellious heart against 
duty ? 0 God, pity and guide me ! ” 

Lucy felt tears starting to her eyes at these 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


207 


new and cruel thoughts, and forced herself again 
to listen to Jack Andre’s small-talk. 

Jack was telling a clever story of a raid he 
and some brother officers had made from New 
York on the poultry-yards of Staten Island. 
An old lady with a broomstick had endeavored 
to defend the Clove Road against these turkey- 
snatchers, and he gave her drawl to the life. 
“ Then,” says Jack, “ out came Captain Ram- 
bullet, with the rusty matchlock of Rambouillet 
his Huguenot ancestor, and interposed a smell of 
cornstalk whiskey between us and his hen-roost.” 
This scene, too, Jack gave with twang and 
drawl to the life, amid roars of laughter, and 
cries of “ Coot ! coot ! ” from Major Emerick. 

Lucy did not laugh. She had all at once 
discovered that her sympathies were with these 
rebels, nasal twang and all. “ My father is one 
of them,” she thought. “ If I am to be saved 
from marrying this coarse glutton, it must be 
by a rebel. Putnam and his officers were not 
so showy as these men; but they seemed more 
in earnest.” 

I do not succeed in entertaining you, fair 
lady,” says Andr6, sotto voce. u Your thoughts 
are all for that happy fellow beside you,” — and 
he looked with a little sneer towards Kerr, who 
was applying to Bottle for the boon of wit. 

A feeling of utter despair came over poor 


208 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


Lucy, as she turned involuntarily, and also 
glanced at the animal. Then she drew away 
indignantly from the man who had put this 
little stab into her heart. 

“ Are there no gentlemen in the world ? ” she 
thought. “ Do men dare to speak so and look 
so at other young ladies ? ” 

“ Loog ad de breddy Meess,” says Emerick, 
holding a wine-glass before his bushy abattis, 
as a cover. “ Zhe is nod habbie wid Chack, 
nor wid Gurr ! ” 

“ A dozen fellows,” Rawdon rejoined, behind 
his glass, “ of better blood than Jack, and better 
hearts than Kerr, would have cut in there long 
ago. The daughter is as sweet and pure as 
a lily. But who dares marry such a mother- 
in-law ? ” — and he shrugged his shoulders ex- 
pressively toward the hostess. 

Do we talk so at dinner-tables in 1860? eh, 
nous autres? 

The hostess now rose, and beckoned her daugh- 
ter. 

“ I leave you, gentlemen, to your toasts,” she 
said. “ Major Kerr will be my representative.” 

She moved to the door. Army and Navy, 
Albion and Hesse, all sprang to open for her. 
A murmur of admiration for her beauty and 
bearing applauded the exit. Lady Brothertoft 
seemed to be at her climax. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


209 


Kerr of course did not let the toasts lag. 

“ The King, gentlemen ! ” 

Cheers ! Drank cyathis plenis. 

Sir Henry Clinton rises, gleaming star, red 
nose, and all, and proposes, “ Our hostess ! ” 
Bumpers and uproar! 

Then they load and fire, fast and furious. 
Bottle can hardly gallop fast enough to supply 
ammunition. 

“ The Army ! ” “ Hooray, hooray ! Speech 
from Lord Rawdon ! ” 

“ The Navy ! ” “ Three cheers for Commo- 
dore Hotham ! ” 

“The captured forts ! ” Drank in silence to 
the memory of Colonel Campbell and Count 
Grabowski, killed there. 

“ Luck to Jack Burgoyne! ” “ Pouting Jack,” 
Andrd suggests. “ May he be a spiler to 
Schuyler, and fling Gates over the hedge into 
the ditch ! ” Laughter and cheers, and im- 
mense rattling of glasses on the table. 

“ Here ’s to General Vaughan and his trip 
up the river to-morrow ! May he add a moral 
to the Esopus fables ! ” 

“ The Brandywine ! and here *s hoping Mr. 
Washington may have another taste of the 
same cup ! ” 

Are modern toasts and dinner-table wit of this 
same calibre ? 


210 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


Kerr rose and endeavored to offer the famous 
sentiment known as The Four Rules of Arith- 
metic. He was muddled by this time, and the 
toast got itself transposed. He gravely pro- 
posed, in a thick voice, and in words with no 
syllables, — “ Addition to the Whigs ! Subtrac- 
tion to the Tories ! Multiplication to the King’s 
foes ! Division to his friends ! ” And added 
Kerr, out of his own head, — “ Cuffush’n t’ 
ev’ryborry ! ” 

Ironical cheers from Jack AndrA Where- 
upon good-natured Emerick, to cover the gen- 
eral serio-comic dismay, rose and said, — “ Shet- 
tlemen, I kiv Bajor Gurr and his breddy bride.” 
Double bumpers. Hooray ryrayry ray ! Rattle 
everybody, with glasses, forks, and nut-crackers. 
One enthusiast flung his glass over his head, and 
then blundered out a call for Captain Andre’s 
song, “ The Lover’s Lament.” Lord Rawdon 
was the only one to perceive the bad omen. 

So Jack, without more solicitation, began, in a 
pretty voice, — 

“ Return, enraptured hours, 

When Delia’s heart was mine,” — 

and so on through a dozen stanzas of Strephon 
ics, — a most moving ditty, the words and music 
his own. 

Everybody felt a little maudlin when this Jack 
of all airs and graces closed his lay with a, dulcet 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


211 


quaver. There was a momentary pause in the 
revel. 

In such pauses young gentlemen who love 
flirtation more than potation dodge off and join 
the ladies. 

Let us follow this good example. A revel, 
with Major Kerr for its master, may easily grow 
to an orgie ; and meanwhile the mother and 
daughter are sitting in the parlor alone 


IV. 


The sun of October had gone down below the 
golden forests on the golden hills. It was dusk, 
and the two ladies sat in the parlor, dimly lit by 
a glimmering fire. 

They were alone ; unless the spirit of the first 
Edwin Brothertoft was looking at them from 
Vandyck’s portrait on the wall. 

That wonderful picture hung in its old place. 
More than a century, now, it had been silently 
watching the fortunes of the family. 

No Provincial daubs had ventured within sight 
of this masterpiece. Each successive Brothertoft 
was always proud to know that his face, at its 
best, was his ancestor’s repeated. Each de- 
scendant said, “Vandyck painted us, once for 
all, in the person of our forefather. When there 
is another Colonel Brothertoft, or a second Van- 
dyck, it will be time to give the picture a com- 
panion.” 

So one perfect work had vetoed a whole gal- 
lery of wooden visages. 

The present Mrs. Brothertoft had always dis- 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


21S 


liked the picture: She had used it as a pre- 
text for first summoning her husband to her 
side. When she brought shame into the house, 
she began to dread its tacit reproach. The eyes 
of the Colonel, sad and stern, seemed forever to 
follow her. His wife’s gentle face grew mer- 
ciless. Even the innocent child on the canvas 
read her secret heart. 

By and by, to escape this inspection, she had 
the portrait covered with a crimson silk curtain. 

“A Vandyek,” she said, “is too rare and too 
precious to be given up to flies.” 

For many years the ancestors had been left to 
blush behind a screen of crimson silk. 

To-day, before dinner, her guests had asked to 
see this famous work of the famous master. 

No one could detect the tremor in her heart at 
this request. No one could see how white her 
face grew as she fumbled with the cords, nor 
how suddenly scarlet as she drew aside the cur- 
tain. 

Every one exclaimed in genuine or conven- 
tional admiration. 

The picture represented that meeting at Old 
Brothertoft Manor, after the battle of Horn- 
castle, in the • time of the Great Rebellion. The 
Colonel was in his corslet, buff and jackboots of 
a trooper. His plumed hat, caught by a cord, 
had fallen upon his shoulder. He wore his hau 


214 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


long, and parted in the middle, like a Cavalier, 
not like a crop-eared Roundhead. On one arm 
rested the bridle of the grand white charger be- 
side him. With the other he held his fair boy, 
now pacified from his Astyanax fright, and smiling 
at his father’s nodding crest and glinting breast- 
plate. The wife, the first Lucy Brothertoft, 
stood by, regarding the two she loved best with 
tender solicitude. It was, indeed, a sweet do- 
mestic group, and the gentleman’s armor, his 
impatient war-horse, and that hint in the back- 
ground of the Manor-House, smoking and in 
ruins, gave it a dramatic element of doubt and 
danger, — a picture full of grace, heroism, and 
affection, — one to dignify a house, to ennoble 
and refine a household. 

Lucy looked at her mother as the curtain 
parted and revealed the three figures. To the 
guests they were Art ; to the ladies they were 
mute personages in a tragedy. Lucy saw her 
mother’s gTance, quick and covert, at these faces 
she had so long evaded. The daughter could 
understand now why, as Mrs. Brothertoft looked, 
her countenance seemed resolutely to harden, 
and grow more beautifully Gorgon than ever. 

“ Quite a chef-d'oeuvre ! ” says Sir Henry 
Clinton, looking through his hand, with a know- 
ing air. — “ What color ! what chiar’ oscuro ! 
whal drapery ! ” Jack Andr6 exclaimed. — “ No 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


215 


one has ever painted high-bred people as Van- 
dyck,” said Lord Rawdon. — “ Breddy bicksher !” 
was Major Emerick’s verdict. — “ You must be 
proud, Madam,” said honest Commodore Hot- 
ham, ignorant of scandal, “ to bear this honored 
and historic name.” 

While these murmurs of approval were going 
on, Plato announced dinner. The guests filed 
out, leaving the picture uncovered. It still re- 
mained so, now that the mother and daughter 
sat in the dusky room, after dinner. The flash- 
ing and fading fire gave its figures movement 
and unreal life. 

Lucy glanced at her mother’s face, now dim 
and far away, and now, as the fire blazed up, 
leaping forth from its lair of darkness. 

“ Certainly,” she thought, “ my mother was 
never so terribly handsome.” 

It was true. She was an imperial woman, 
face, form, and bearing. How majestic her 
strong, straight nose, her full chin, her vigorous 
color, her daring eyes, her brow of command, 
and her black hair dressed, after a mode of the 
day, in a tower, and falling in masses on the 
neck ! More flesh and more color would have 
made her coarse. Is it possible that the excite- 
ment of a bad conscience has refined her beauty ? 
Must the coarse take the poison of sin, as the 
fine take the medicine of sorrow, to kill the 


216 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


carnal element in their natures ? Is it needful 
for some to wear, through life, a harsh dishonor 
next the skin ? 

“ How can this be ? ” thought Lucy. “ Should 
not the heart have peace, that the face may wear 
beauty, the emblem of peace ? Can there be 
peace in her heart ?” 

Peace ! As if in answer, at a flash of firelight, 
the mother’s face glared out fierce and cruel. 
Sternness, but no peace there ! 

Lucy turned, and took refuge with the person- 
ages of the picture. 

“ You,” she addressed them in mute appeal, 
“ are a world nearer my heart than this unmoth- 
erly woman beside me. 0 chivalric gentleman ! 
0 benign lady ! encourage and sustain me ! My 
heart will break with these doubts and plots and 
perils.” 

The two ladies sat silent by the firelight. 
The guests were noisy, two doors off. They 
were laughing and applauding Kerr’s tipsy 
toasts, Andrd’s song, Emerick’s Hessian butch- 
ery of the King’s English. 

At a louder burst of revelry Lucy started, 
shrank, and glanced at her mother’s impassive 
face, — a loyal mask to its mistress. 

Mrs. Brothertoft also looked up, and caught 
Lucy’s eye. For an instant the two gazed at 
one another. There was an instant’s spiritual 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


217 


struggle, — the fine nature against the coarse, 
the tainted being against the pure. Their two 
souls stood at their eyes, and battled for a breath, 
while the fire flashed like a waving of torches. 

The flash sunk, the room was dark again. 
But before the light was gone the guilty eyes 
wavered, the guilty spirit cowered. Mrs. Brotli- 
ertoft looked away, seeking refuge from her 
daughter, against whose innocent heart she was 
devising an infamy. 

As she turned, she caught sight of the picture. 
It was steadily regarding her, — a judge, remote, 
unsympathetic, Rhadamanthine. 

At this sight, the perpetual inner battle in her 
evil heart stormed to the surface. Her coun- 
tenance was no longer an impassive mask. 

Lucy suddenly saw a bedlam look leap out 
upon those beautiful features. 

It seemed to Mrs. Brothertoft that the Furies, 
whose companionship and hints she had so long 
encouraged, now closed in upon her, and became 
body of her body, soul of her soul. 

She rose, and strode up to the uncovered por- 
trait. 

She stood a moment, surveying it in silence, — 
herself a picture in the fire-lit obscure. 

How beautiful her white shoulders, her white 
bosom above the dark silk, cut low and square in 
front, after a fashion of the time ! How won 
10 


218 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


drously modelled her perfect arms ! The dia- 
mond at her throat trembled like the unwinking 
eye of a serpent. 

She raised her white right arm, and pointed at 
the figure of the Parliamentary Colonel. 

By the firelight, it seemed as if he, thus sum- 
moned, still holding his eager white horse by the 
bridle, stepped out before the canvas, ready for 
this colloquy. 

Lucy was terrified by her mother’s wild ex- 
pression and gesture. The gentleman in the 
portrait had taken more than ever the semblance 
of her father’s very self. But he wore a sterner 
look than she remembered on that desolate face. 

The daughter shuddered at this strange meet- 
ing of her parents, — one in the flesh, one in the 
spirit. 

“ Sir ! ” said Mrs. Brothertoft, still pointing at 
the picture. There was scorn, veiling dread, in 
her voice. 

Lucy could not control herself. She burst into 
tears. 

At the sound of her first sob, the mother came 
to herself. Bedlam tore itself out of her face 
with a spasm. She let fall her round, white 
arm. A tremor and a chill shook her. With 
these, the Furies seemed to glide forth from her 
being. They stood for an instant, dim and rus* 
tling forms in the glimmer. Then they van- 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


219 


ished to their place of call. Mrs. Brothertoft 
dashed the curtain over the picture and moved 
away. 

She did not perceive — for she looked thither 
no more — that by her violent movement she 
had broken the cord, and let down one fall of 
the curtain, at the top, so that there was space 
for the heads of the soldier and his white horse 
to appear. 

There those heads wait, as if at a window. 
There they seem, horse and man, to watch for 
their moment to spring into that dusky room, lit 
by the flashes of a dying fire. 

Mrs. Brothertoft turned, and laid her hand on 
her sobbing daughter’s shoulder. 

“ You seem agitated and hysterical, my dear,” 
she said, almost gently. “ Perhaps you had bet- 
ter hide your tears in your pillow. We shall not 
see our noisy friends for some time.” 

Again their eyes met for an instant. But the 
mother mistook Lucy’s pleading expression. 
She had lost her power of deciphering an in- 
nocent face. She fancied she read contempt 
and triumph, where there was only pity and 
love longing to revive. She turned away, and, 
yielding to a brutal emotion, resumed, — “ Yes, 
go, Lucy, and keep out of sight for the evening ! 
We must not have red eyes and swollen cheeks 
when Adonis comes from dinner with pretty 
speeches for liis fair bride.” 


220 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


Lucy rose, disappointed and indignant, and left 
the parlor without “ Good night.” 

Given two weeks instead of two days before 
marriage, and this gentle spirit might emancipate 
itself. But obedience is still a piety with Lucy. 
Mute mental protests against injustice do not 
train the will. It must win strength by strug- 
gles. Her will has sunk into chronic inertia. 
She suffers now for her weakness, as if it were a 
crime. 

She fled by the noisy dining-room and up to 
her chamber in the tower at the northwest cor- 
ner of the house. In the mild, clear, star-lit 
night she could see yellow autumn among the 
woods around the mansion. Beyond, the white 
river belted the world. The lights of the Brit- 
ish frigates sparkled like jewels in this silver 
cincture. Dunderberg, large and vague, hid the 
spaces westward, where night was overflowing 
twilight. Northward, the Highlands closed the 
view, dim as Lucy’s hope. 

Ah ! why was there no clairvoyante Sister 
Anne to cry that she saw “ somebody coming,” — 
to tell the desolate girl, staring from her window 
into the unfriendly night, that succor was afoot, 
and hastening in three detachments southward, 
as fast as the boulder, the bog, and the forest 
would permit. 

But there was no Sister Anne, no friend 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


221 


within or without the house. And so, closed 
doors! Weep, sob, pray, poor child. Suffer, suf- 
fer, young heart ! Suffer and be strong ! 

Closed doors at last, and quiet at the Manor. 
Songs silent. Revelry over. The guests have 
gone, walking as men walk after too many 
bumpers. Sentinels here and there have re- 
ceived the inarticulate countersign. The boats’ 
crews, chilly and sulky with long waiting, have 
pulled the “lobsters” off to the frigates, and 
boosted them up the sides. They have tumbled 
into their berths in ward-room or cabin, — one, 
alas ! with his Hessians on ! They must quickly 
sleep off wassail, and be ready to stir with dawn, 
for at sunrise General Yaughan starts with his 
flotilla up the river. And most of the diners- 
out, whether their morning headaches like it or 
not, must go with the General to commit arson 
upon Esopus, alias Kingston, a most pestilent 
nest of rebels. 

Quiet then aboard the Tartar, the Preston, and 
the Mercury, swinging to their anchors in the 
calm river ! Quiet at the Manor-House ! but not 
peaceful repose, — for in their dreams the spirits 
of the mother and the daughter battle, and both 
are worn and weary with that miserable war. 


V 


There were three headaches next morning at 
the breakfast-table at Brothertoft Manor. 

Major Kerr carried an enormous ache in his 
thick skull. His was the crapulous headache. 
He knew it well. Every manner of cure, except 
prevention, he had experimented upon. The 
soda-water-cure did not reach his malady. The 
water-cure, whether applied in the form of pump 
or a wet turban, was equally futile. 

“ It could n’t have been t’ other bottle that 
has made me feel so queer,” Kerr soliloquized. 
“ Must have been Jack Andre’s mawkish songs. 
I never could stand poetry.” 

So he marched down to breakfast, more Rubens 
in complexion than ever, and twice as surly. 

Spending tears had given Lucy her headache. 
She had wept enough to fill a brace of lacry- 
matories. The pangs sharpened when she saw 
Adonis appear, very red and very gruff. He 
seemed fairly loathsome to her now. 

“Must such a beast — yes, I will say beast — 
as that come near me?” thought she. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


223 


Strong language for a young lady ; but appro- 
priate. It is well to have a few ugly epithets 
in one’s vocabulary. Hard words have their 
virtue and their place, as well as soft ones. 

Mrs. Brothertoft also had a headache. 

She looked pale and ill this morning. This 
will never do, Madam. Consider your beauty ! 
It will consume away, if you allow so much 
fever in your brain. 

Breakfast was more silent even than yester- 
day’s. No headache cared to ask sympathy of 
either of the others. 

Lucy said not a word. She compelled herself 
to be at table. She dreaded her mother’s pres- 
ence ; but she dreaded her absence still more. 
Lucy suffered under the uneasiness of a young 
plotter. She knew that her plot was visible in 
her face. She trembled at every look. And yet 
she felt safer while she was facing her foes. 
Poor child ! if she could have wept, as she 
wished, freely and alone, a dozen of lacryma- 
tories — magnums — would not have held her 
tears. 

Moody Mrs. Brothertoft is also silent. 

She does not think it good policy to draw out 
her son-in-law this morning. Only a wretchedly 
low card, and no trump, will respond to the 
attempt. T’ other bottle rather drowns the power 
of repartee. Major Kerr was too inarticulate 


224 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


last night to be very coherent this morning 
A courtly bow and a fine manner are hardly 
to be expected at levSe from a hero lugged to 
his couchSe by Plato and two clodhoppers, — 
themselves a little out of line and step with 
too many heeltaps. The hostess does not choose 
by solicitous questions to get growls from the 
future bridegroom, such as, — 

Kerr loquitur. “ Yes, thank you ; my tea is 
mere milksop ; my egg an addle ; my toast a 
chip ; my butter lard ; my buckwheat cakes 
dem’d flabby. Everything has a tipsy taste and 
smells of corked Madeira. 0, my head ! ” 

Such talk would not make the lover more 
captivating. He had better be left to himself, 
to take his breakfast with what stomach he 
may. 

Nor does Mrs. Brothertoft think it wise to 
remark upon yesterday’s dinner and its distin- 
guished guests to her daughter. Remark brings 
rejoinder. This morning, again, Lucy had no 
kiss for her mother. Instead of the warm, ten- 
der caress of other days, with warmth and ten- 
derness for two, Lucy’s manner was grave and 
distant. 

Mrs. Brothertoft divines incipient rebellion in 
her daughter. She does not wish to let it cul- 
tivate itself with contradictions. If she should 
propound, “ It is a fine morning,” Lucy might 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


225 


say, “It seems to me cold as Greenland.” If 
she suggested, “ My dear, have the horses sad- 
dled, and take Major Kerr to see the view from 
Cedar Ridge,” Lucy would probably respond, 
“ Major Kerr is not fond of nature, and I am 
afraid of marauders.” If she remarked, “ What 
a grand, soldierly creature Major Emerick is! 
What an amusing accent ! and his moustache 
how terribly charming ! ” Lucy might curl her 
pretty lip, and reply, “ Grand ! soldierly ! the 
hirsute ogre ! As to his accent, — I do not 
understand Hessian ; and it does not amuse me 
to hear good pronounced i coot,’ and to have 
pictures, flowers, soup, and the North River, 
all classed together and complimented as £ bred- 
dy.’ And as to his moustache, — no moustache 
is tolerable ; and if any, certainly not that great 
black thing.” Nor would it do for the mother 
to say, “ I am sure you found Captain Andre an 
Admirable Crichton,” and to hear from her 
daughter in reply, “ Don’t speak of him ! I am 
still 'sick with his sentimentality of a Strephon. 
He is a flippant coxcomb. I do not wonder 
Miss Honora Sneyd got tired of him, with his 
little smile and his little sneer.” 

Such responses Lucy would probably have 
made to her mother’s attempts at breakfast-table 
talk. Do these answers seem inconsistent with 
the great sorrow and the great terror in the girl’s 

10* Q 


226 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


heart ? Our passions, like our persons, are not 
always en grande tenue. It is a sign that the 
heart is not quite broken, when its owner has 
life enough to be pettish. The popgun is the 
father of the great gun. Silly skirmish and 
bandying of defiance precede the great battle 
for life and death. 

So Mrs. Brothertoft knew, and she was not 
willing to give Lucy the chance to hear herself 
say, ‘No.’ If she were once publicly compro- 
mised as of the negative faction, she might, even 
at this late hour, foster her little germ of inde- 
pendence. She might wake up to-morrow with 
a Will of Her Own, grown in a single night as 
big as Jack’s bean-stalk. She might expand her 
solitary, forlorn hope of a first No into a con- 
quering army. No, No, — only a letter and a 
cipher, — she might add ciphers, multiply it by 
successive tens and make it No, 000,000,000, — 
and so on, until she was impregnable to the 
appointed spouse. 

This of course must not be. 

The mother did not know that Lucy had hoist- 
ed a signal of distress, and that she was almost 
ready to haul her flag up from half-mast, and fly 
it at the masthead of defiance. This Mrs. Broth- 
ertoft did not suspect of her submissive and meek 
child. She knew nothing of Voltaire’s errand. 
But she had grown suddenly apprehensive and 


Edwin beotheetoft. 


22 ? 


timorous, and hardly recognized her old intrepid 
self this morning. She began to quail a little 
more and more before her daughter’s innocence. 
For all reasons, she did not desire to provoke 
discussion. 

A grim, mute breakfast, therefore, at Brother- 
toft Manor. 

Each headache looked into its tea-cup in 
silence. Major Kerr crunched a bit of dry 
toast, instead of feeding omnivorously. 

There is no conversation of this party to re- 
port, gay or glum. 

But tableau is sometimes more dramatic than 
talk. 

A new-comer at the door glanced at this 
unsociable trio, and deciphered the picture 
pretty accurately. 

It was old Voltaire, limping forward from 
the kitchen. 

Lucy sat with her face toward the pantry 
door, and first saw him. 

Flash ! Lucy lightened and almost showered 
tears at the rising of this black cloud, charged 
with fresh electricity. 

Flash back! from the whites of Voltaire’s 
eyes and from his teeth. 

It was a brief flash, but abiding enough to 
show Lucy, through her gloom, one figure 
stealing to her succor. Him she was sure of, 


228 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


— her father. But one gleam from the whites 
of a black could not reveal the other recruits 
to her rebel army. So they must remain la- 
tent, with their names and faces latent, until 
she can have an interview with her complotter. 

But what a hot agony of hope blazed up 
within her at Voltaire’s look and cunning nod ! 

“ I must not scream with joy,” she thought. 
“I must not shriek out this great, wicked, tri- 
umphant laugh I feel stirring in me. I must 
not jump up and hug the dear old soul. 
Thank Heaven, my tea is hot, and I can choke 
myself and cry.” 

Which she proceeded to do ; and under cover 
of her napkin got her face into mask condition 
again. 

She was taking lessons — this fair novice — in 
what a woman’s face is made for ; — namely, to 
look cool when the heart is fiery ; to look dull, 
when the wits have just suffered the whetstone ; 
to look blank, when the soul’s hieroglyphs will 
stare out if a blush is only turned on ; to look 
tame, when the spirit is tiger ; to look peace, 
when there is no peace; to look mild as new 
milk, when the blood boils and explosion butts 
against the wired cork of self-control. A guile- 
ful world, guileless lady ! and you must fight 
your fight to-day with silence and secrecy, lest 
mamma detect a flutter in your bosom, and your 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


229 


fledgling purpose of flight get its pin-feathers 
pulled, if not its neck wrung. 

Voltaire limped forward with a plate of buck- 
wheat cakes. They were meal of the crop 
which had whitened the slopes of Westchester 
this summer, and purpled them this autumn. 
They were round as a doubloon, or the moon at 
its fullest. Their edges were sharp, and not 
ragged and taggy. Their complexion was most 
delicate mulatto. Their texture was bubbly as 
the wake of a steamboat. Eyes never lighted on 
higher art than the top cake, and even the one 
next the plate utterly refused to be soggy. In- 
deed, each pancake was a poem, — a madrigal 
of Sappho’s most simply delicate confectioning, 
round as a sonnet, and subtle in flavor as an 
epigram. 

These pearls Voltaire cast before the party. 
Nobody partook. Nobody appreciated. Nobody 
noticed. The three appetites of the three head- 
aches were too dead to stir. 

The old fellow was retiring, when Mrs. Broth- 
ertoft addressed him roughly. 

“ I shall promote Plato and break you, Vol- 
taire, if you are taken sick at the wrong time 
again.” 

4 4 Sorry, missus. Colored mobbas, missus. 
No stoppin’ him. Bery bad indeed ! ” 

His appearance disarmed suspicion. He was 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


230 

a weary and dismal object after his journey. 
No one, to look at him, would have divined that 
his pangs were of the motive powers, and not 
the digestive, — that he suffered with the nicked 
shin, the stubbed toe, and the strained calf, and 
was utterly unconscious of a stomach, except as 
a locality for colonizing a white lie in. 


VI. 


When Pyramus and Thisbe, when Coeur de 
Lion and Blondel, want speech of each other, 
Wall will ever have “ a cranny right and sinister ” 
for their whispers, will “ show a chink to blink 
through with their eyne.” 

Breakfast was over. Yoltaire was in the pan- 
try, clashing dish and pan for a signal. Lucy 
waited her moment to dart in and get her hopes 
of escape made into certainties. 

“ I am going up stairs, Lucy,” said her mother, 
“ to give Dewitt her last hints about your wed- 
ding-dress. Come up presently and try it on.” 

She went out, leaving lover and lady together. 

Kerr stood before the fire in his favorite pos- 
ture. His face was red, his jacket was red. He 
produced the effect of a great unmeaning daub 
of scarlet in a genre — mauvais genre — picture. 

The big booby grew embarrassed with himself. 
The quiet presence of this young girl abashed 
him. He knew that his suit was an insult to her. 
He saw that she did not appreciate his feet and 
inches. Neither his cheeks nor his shoulders 


232 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


nor his calves touched her heart. His vanity 
had been hurt, and he felt a spiteful triumph 
that she was in his power. 

This morning he was ashamed of "himself. It 
is a grievous thing that men cannot go to bed 
tipsy and wake up without headaches and with 
self-respect. Perhaps it will be different when 
Chaos comes again. 

Kerr felt disgusted with himself, and embar 
rassed. He wanted to talk to cover his awk- 
wardness. He did not know what to say. The 
complaint is not uncommon. 

“ I suppose she knows it ’s a line day, and 
wont thank me for telling her,” he thought 
“Vaughan’s trip up the river, — that’s talked 
out. I made the pun about Esopus and Esop’s 
fables, that Rawdon got off last night, and she 
did n’t laugh. I wish I had Jack Andre’s tongue. 
I have half a mind to cut it out of him — the 
dashed whipper-snapper — for trying to get her 
to flirt with him yesterday. I suppose I ought 
to be making love now. But she has never let 
me come near enough to make what I call love. 
Well, I must say something. Here goes 1 Ahem ! 
Lucy — Miss Lucy.” 

“ Sir.” 

“ It ’s a very fine day.” 

“ Very.” 

“ A most uncommonly fine day for this doosed 
climate.” 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


238 


No reply. 

“I’d box the dumb thing’s ears if she was 
Mrs. K.,” thought the Major. “ But she sha’n’t 
silence me. I ’ll give her another chance. Ahem! 
Miss Lucy ! Would n’t you like to stroll out and 
take the air ? ” 

“ No, I thank you. Do not let me detain you.” 

“I say, you know, we’re to be married to- 
morrow. You needn’t be so infernally distant.” 

“ My mother wishes me to join her with the 
dressmakers.” 

“ Well, if you wont come, you wont,” says 
Kerr, taking himself off in dudgeon. 

He walked out upon the lawn. The air was 
nine-oxygen azote of the purest proof. He swal- 
lowed it boozily, as if it were six-water grog. 

Lucy hied to the try sting-place, where the 
arch-plotter was waiting amid pans and dishes. 

“ 0 Voltaire, tell me ! ” she cried. And here 
tears interrupted her, and gushed as if she in- 
tended to use the biggest pan for a lacrymatory. 

“ Don’t cry, Miss Lucy,” the old fellow says. 
“It’s good news!” 

At which she only wept the more. 

Without much knowledge of the chemistry of 
tears, Voltaire saw that spending them relieved 
and calmed the young lady. Meanwhile, to be 
talking on indifferent subjects until her first 
burst was over, he said, “ I saw Major Scrammel 


234 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


at Fishkill, Miss Lucy. He asked after your 
health.” 

“ I am obliged to him.” The name seemed 
to act like a dash of cold water. These Majors 
fatigued her. Scrammel Yankee, Emerick Hes- 
sian, Kerr British, — she liked none of them. 
She began to feel a disgust for the grade. 

“ My father ! ” she said, with her whole heart 
in the word, “ tell me of him. He has not for- 
gotten me. He loves me. He will save me from 
this — this — ” A sob drowned the epithet. 

“ He loves you dearly,” Yoltaire responded. 

“ Lub,” he still pronounced the precious word. 
He brought his two thick lips together to sound 
the final “b,” instead of lightly touching his 
upper teeth against his lower lip and breathing 
out “ ve ” final. 

This great fact of love established, with all its 
sequel, by a single word, Lucy, womanlike, de- 
sired to know that this dear new lover no longer 
misunderstood her. She must be satisfied that 
she stood right in his esteem before she could 
take thought of her own dangers. 

“ You told him,” she said, eagerly, “ that I 
was not an unnatural daughter, — only deceived 
and deluded by this cruel woman ? ” 

Tears had started again, as she thought of the 
misery he must have suffered for her disloyalty. 
But indignation at her mother burned them up, 
and she closed her sentence sternly. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


235 


“ He sees through it all,” the old ambassador 
replied. 

“ How did he look ? Not very sad, I hope ? ” 
she said. 

Womanlike again, she must have the person 
before her eyes. She must see him, a visible 
being, — that she could take to her heart with 
infinite love and pity and hope, — before she 
could listen to his message of comfort to her. 

“ He looked pretty old, Miss Lucy. His hair ’s 
grown gray. It oughtn’t to. He ’s a boy still, — 
only a little better than forty. He could make 
his life all over again yet. But he looked old 
and settled down sad. He ’s got a sargeant’s 
coat on, instead of a general’s ; but he looks, 
into his face, as if he know’d all generals know, 
and a heap more.” 

“ My dear father ! ” interjected Lucy in the 
middle of Voltaire’s description. And she 
thought what a beloved task it would be for 
her to renew and restore that ruined life. 

“ And now, Voltaire,” she said, “ can he pro- 
tect me?” 

“ We talked it all over. He did n’t see any- 
thing he could do. He said he was too broken- 
hearted to plan for anybody.” 

Poor Lucy ! all her hopes thus dashed down ! 
She could almost hear her own heart break. 

But Voltaire continued: “He had guv” — 


236 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


(no Tombigbee, old boy !) — “ given it all up, 
and I was goin’ off feelin’ mighty low, — mighty 
low, I tell you , Miss Lucy. I started off for 
the woods and sot down, lookin’ for a squer- 
ril-hole to git into, and die like a fourlegs. 
Jess then, jess before I ’d found my dyin’ bed, 
I heerd somebody screech, ‘ Yoltaire, Yoltaire ! ’ 
like mad. Fust I thought ’t was the Holy 
Angels. Then I thought praps ’t was the Black 
Debbls, prowlin’. I looked round the woods, 
pretty skeered, and heerd chestnuts drap. Then 
come the yell again, and your father lighted 
right down on me and dragged me back like 
a go-cart. I did n’t know what was cornin’ ; but 
he yanked me up the bank to the old well, 
afront of Squire Yan Wyck’s farm-house, and 
there I saw — ” 

At this point of his eager recital Yoltaire’s 
ancient bellow had to pause and draw breath. 

“ Saw ! ” cried Lucy equally eager, peopling 
this pause with a great legion of upstart hopes, 
all in buff and blue, fine old Continentals com- 
plete from boots to queues ; but strangers to 
her, and therefore without faces. 

“ Saw Major Skerrett,” gasped Yoltaire. 

All that legion of hopes in Lucy’s brain sud- 
denly condensed into a single heroic Continental 
vision, with the name Skerrett for a face. She 
was sure this new-comer meant Help. She 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


237 


could feel her just now breaking heart tie itself 
together with a chain, each link a letter of the 
name Skerrett. 

“ Another Major ! ” she said, half impatiently* 

There was almost a shade of coquetry in her 
little protest against this stranger personage. 
The woman was not dead in her yet. 

“ Anudder Major ob anudder stuff. De good 
God, not de Debbl, — he make dis one.” 

“0 Yoltaire, don’t talk so!” 

Did she object to his fact in physiology, or 
to his pronunciation? 

Yoltaire, with bellows rested, now began to 
describe the new hero with enthusiasm. His 
touches were crude, but picturesque, — a char- 
coal sketch. 

“ Major Skerrett, Miss Lucy. 0 my ! what a 
beautiful moustache he had ! jess the color of 
ripe chestnut-leaves, and curling down on each 
side, so.” 

The black forefinger described au ogee on 
either black lip. 

Lucy did not interrupt. She must have her 
correct image of the new actor before she in- 
quired his role. She perceived already that he 
was not to be a sicklied Hamlet. 

Her first picture of the hero had been a figure 
in a Continental uniform, with the name Sker* 
vett instead of a face. 


238 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


Second picture: Lucy sees the mere name 
vanish. Two chestnut-leaves, fine gold as Octo- 
ber can paint them, broad in the middle, blunt 
at the but, taper toward the point, serrated 
along the edges, dispose themselves to her mind’s 
eye in the air, and form a moustache. She 
looks at her vision of this isolated feature, and 
thinks, “It is much prettier than Major Erne- 
rick’s.” 

“ A go-ahead nose,” continues Voltaire, with- 
out pause. 

Lucy inserts a go-ahead nose into the blank, 
over and a little ahead of the moustache. Third 
picture. 

“ No mumps round his cheeks and chin,” the 
describer went on. 

Not a mump had ever disfigured the cheeks 
Lucy hereupon balanced on either side of the 
nose and the chin which she had located under 
the two chestnut-leaves. Picture fourth. 

“ Eyes blue as that saucer,” — Voltaire pointed 
to a piece of delicate china, — “ and they look 
like the Holy Angels.” 

Into their sockets Lucy inserted a pair of 
orbs, saucer in color not in shape, and gave 
them a holy, angelic expression. She inspected 
the growing portrait with her own sweet eyes, — 
they were hazel, “ an excellent thing in woman,” 
— and began to think the illumined face very 
charming. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


239 


“ Lots of tan on his bark,” resumed the 
painter in words. 

Lucy dipped her pencil in umber and gave 
the bark of cheeks, chin, and nose a nut-brown 
tint, that bravely backed the gold of the mous- 
tache. 

“ Yaller hair under his cocked hat.” 

“ Yellow ! if you please, Voltaire,” she pro- 
tested, and with skilful thought she adjusted 
the coiffure. 

“ No queue.” 

An imaginary queue, tied with a tumbled 
black ribbon, had been bobbing in the air near 
the hero’s cerebellum. Lucy docked it, and, with 
a scornful gesture, sent it whirling off into the 
Unseen. 

“ Now,” says Voltaire, “ you jess stick in Troot 
(Truth), Wercher (Virtue), Kerridge (Cour- 
age), and all the other good things into that are 
face : you jess clap on a smile that ’ll make 
a dough heart in a bosom turn into light gin- 
gerbread ; and give him a look that can make 
stubbed toes want to wheel about and turn about 
and dance breakdowns, and is stickin’ plaster 
to every scratch on an old free colored gentle- 
man’s shins: you jess think you see a Major 
what Liberty and all the Holy Angels is pullin’ 
caps for, and all the Debbls is shakin’ huf away 
from where he stands: you jess git all that 


240 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


in your eye, Miss Lucy, and you ’ve got Major 
Skerrett.” 

The picture was complete. Truth, Virtue, 
Courage, and the sister qualities, Lucy had dim- 
pled into the bronzed cheeks, as a sailor pricks 
an anchor, or Polly’s name, into a brother tar’s 
arm with India ink. She had given the hero’s 
face a smile, yeasty, sugary, and pungent enough 
to convert the dullest dough heart into light gin- 
gerbread. She had bestowed upon her ideal a 
look that would be surgery to scarred shins and 
light fantasy to the weariest toes. Now she 
passed her finger over the chestnut-leaf mous- 
tache to smooth down its serrated edges. The 
portrait was done. Lucy surveyed it an instant, 
and blushed to think it was indeed a Major that 
women and angels might pull caps for. 

She blushed to herself — the simple maid — 
and felt a slight shame at her longing to see if 
the real man was identical with her ideal. 

This child — remember she was but eighteen, 
and had been kept by herself and her mother, a 
complete child until just now — this child had 
hitherto had no ideal of a hero except that he 
must be Kerr’s opposite. We know already her 
verdict upon the British officers. Of Putnam’s 
family, Scrammel she distrusts ; RadiSre she 
would like as a friend, if he were not so Gallic, 
dyspeptic, and testy; Humphreys is ridiculous, 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


241 


with his grand airs and his prosy poetasms ; Liv- 
ingston amuses her ; — voila tout ! 

“ And can this gentleman help ? ” she asked 
earnestly, as soon as she had his person before 
her eyes. 

“Help!” says Voltaire; “he can’t help help- 
ing. That ’s his business under this canopy.” 

The negro stated briefly the scheme for Kerr’s 
capture and her abduction. 

Lucy comprehended the whole in a moment. 

“ Major Skerrett sent you a message, Miss 
Lucy,” says the successful envoy, closing his 
report. 

“ Me ! ” she said. She massacred a little 
scruple, that Major Kerr’s betrothed ought not 
to be receiving messages from strange majors. 
“ What is it ? He is very kind to think of me.” 

“ He said, * Tell Miss Brothertoft to be brave, 
to be prudent, and to keep her room with a 
headache, until we are ready to start.’ ” 

“ It makes me brave and prudent, now that I 
have a strong friend to trust. But the headache 
I had is all gone. I never felt so well and happy 
in my life.” 

“Look at him!” Voltaire rejoined, pointing 
to Kerr, through the pantry window. “ That 
will make you ache from your head to your heels.” 

She did look, and ached at once with fresh 
resentment and disgust. 

11 


t 


242 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


Kerr was leaning limp against a tree, breath- 
ing tipsily his nine-oxygen azote. The golden 
hills, the blue river, and the mountains, blue and 
gold, had no charms for him. He was thinking, 
“Almost time to make it seven bells. I can’t 
touch anything stronger than six-water grog this 
morning. 0 my head ! ” 

“ Pretty fellow fur a lubber to my young 
lady ! ” says Voltaire. His mispronunciation 
revealed a truth. 

This faithful blackamoor now proceeded to act 
Othello relating his adventures. He had a tragi- 
comic episode to impart of his “ hair-breadth 
’scapes,” “ of being taken by the insolent foe,” 
of all “ his portance in his travel’s history ” ; and 
what he suffered, shin and sole, in the “ rough 
quarries, rocks, and hills ” back of Anthony’s 
Nose, while he dodged by night along the by- 
paths. 

Lucy “ gave him for his pains a world of 
sighs,” and “ loved him for the dangers he had 
passed ” in her service. 

“ Now,” said the loyal squire, in conclusion, 
“ I must set you something to do, Miss Lucy.” 

“ What ? ” she asked, trembling a little at re- 
sponsibility. 

u Send Dewitt and Sally Bilsby off home ! 
They ’ll want a frolic after working so hard on 
your wedding-dress. We must have the house 
to ourselves to-night.” 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


243 


“ To-night ! Lucy's heart bounded and sunk. 
Yes, she must be free to-night, or to-morrow 
would make her a slave. 

“Miss Lucy," whispered Yoltaire, “two of 
'em was here already before sunrise." 

“ Not the " She hesitated. 

“Not the Major ! No ; old Sam Galsworthy 
and Hendrecus Canady. You know 'em. They 
come to see how the land lay." 

“ Mother calls ; I must go," said Lucy, in a 
tremor. 

She gave one look through the window at 
Kerr, leaning limp against a chestnut-tree. 
The Skerrett-moustache-colored leaves in myriad 
pairs shook over him. She seemed to see a 
myriad of faces, with go-ahead noses, no mumps, 
angelic blue eyes, bronzed skins, and truth and 
courage in every line, looking out of the tree, 
and signalizing her, “ Be brave ! be prudent ! " 


VII. 


Portentous all the morning was Voltaire to 
Sappho. 

Now cookery, like chemistry, must have peace 
to perform its experiments in. 

Poor Sappho, with her husband darting into the 
kitchen, looking mysterious, exploding “ Hush ! ” 
and darting off again, was as much flustered 
as a nervous chemical professor when his pupils 
jeer his juggles with cabbage-liquor, and turn 
up rebellious noses at his olefiant gas. 

Sappho’s great experiment of dinner suffered. 
She put sugar in her soup and salt in her pud- 
ding. She sowed allspice for peppercorns, and 
vice versa. She overdid the meat that should 
have been underdone. She roasted her goose 
until its skin was plate armor. She baked her 
piecrust hard as Westchester shale. Yester- 
day’s dinner was sublime ; to-day’s would be 
ridiculous. Conspiracy upsets domestic econo- 
my, as it does political. 

When Voltaire had deranged his wife with 
dark hints, he proceeded to perplex his son. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


245 


Plato was lord of the stables. These were 
times of war. Westchester was beginning to 
suffer for being neutral ground for rebel and 
tory to plunder. Rents came slow at Brothertoft 
Manor, and when they came were short. Econo- 
my must be consulted. That crafty counsellor 
suggested that Plato’s helpers in the stable 
should be discharged, and he do three men’s 
work. He was allowed, however, Bilsby juve- 
nissimus and another urchin from the Manor to 
“ chore ” for him. They were unpaid attaches. 
They did free service as stable-boys, for the 
honor and education of the thing, for the priv- 
ilege of chewing straws among the horses, and 
for the luxury of a daily bellyful of pork and 
pudding, and a nightly bed in the loft. 

Voltaire went out to the stable. The six white 
horses of famous Lincolnshire stock stood, three 
on this side, three on that. Their long tails oc- 
casionally switched to knock off the languid last 
flies of summer. 

Voltaire stopped at the coach-house door to 
drive out a noisy regiment of chickens. A lum- 
bering old coach, of the leathern conveniency 
order, was shoved away in a corner. There is 
always such a vehicle in every old family stable, — 
a stranded ark, that no horse-power will ever stir 
again. 

“ Nineteen year ago,” thought the ancient 


246 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


Brothertoft retainer, “ nineteen year ago last 
June, I drew Mister Edwin and that Billop gal, 
in that conveniency, less than two hundred yards 
from her house in Wall Street to Trinity Church, 
to be married. I heerd the Trinity bells say, 
‘ Edwin Brothertoft, don’t marry a Billop ! ’ 
I felt it in my bones that she ’d turn out mean. 
Her money brought worse luck than we ’d ever 
had before. And the good luck has n’t got holt 
yet.” 

“ Plato,” says he, stepping into the great pic- 
turesque stable, half full of sunshine, half of 
shade, and half of hay, fragrant as the Fourth 
of July. 

“ Sir ! ” says Plato, drawing himself up, and 
giving a military salute. He had seen much 
soldiering going on of late, and liked to play at 
it, — a relic, perhaps, of Gorilla imitativeness. 

“ Them boys don’t look to me in good health.” 

Voltaire pointed to Bilsby and mate. They 
were both chewing straws, — a pair of dull sharps, 
like most young clodhoppers. They could tell a 
calf from a colt with supernatural keenness ; but 
were of the class which gets itself well Peter- 
Funked before its manhood learns the time of 
day. 

“ Dey ’s fat, ragged, and sassy as ary boys dis 
^hile ever seed,” rejoined Plato. 

“ Bery weakly dey looks,” continued the con* 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


247 


spirator. “ Failin’ away horrible ! Neber see 
sich sickly boys ’n all my born days. Chestnuts 
is what dey wants. Worms is de trouble. Boys 
always gits worms onless dey eats suthin on to 
a bushel of chestnuts in de fall.” 

The two ragamuffins dropped their straws, 
turned pale, and began to feel snakes wake and 
crawl within them. 

“ Now, boys,” says Voltaire impressively, “ if 
you want ter perwent dem varmint, jess you 
put fur de woods an’ fill yourselves plum full 
ob chestnuts.” 

“ But chestnuts has worms, too,” objected 
Bilsby. 

“ So much de better ; dey ’ll eat yourn. Go 
’long now. Stay hum to-night, and don’t come 
roun’ here fore to-morrow noon. Be keerfle 
now ! Eat all to-day ; and pick to-morrow to 
keep. You don’t look to me like boys who is 
prepared to die.” 

The pair obeyed, and departed solemnly. Noth- 
ing but chestnuts could save them from the worm 
that never dieth. There were two very grave 
and earnest lads that day cracking burrs in the 
groves of Brotliertoft Manor. 

Plato stared in consternation as he saw his 
regiment disbanded. 

Voltaire winked with both eyes, and chuckled 
enormously. 


248 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


44 Don’t you ask me no questions, Plato,” says 
he, “ an’ you wont have no lies to complex yer 
mind. I meant to clare de kitchen, ole fokes, 
young fokes, an so I scared off dem boys, ho, ho ! 
Now I ’s gwine to gib you a conundrum, Plato.” 

Plato let go Volante’s tail, which he was comb- 
ing, and pricked up his ears. 

“ What does a young lady do when she don’t 
want to marry her fust husband ? ” 

“ Marries her second,” guessed Plato, cheer- 
fully. 

“ Plato ! I ’se ashamed of you. Dat would 
be bigamy.” 

The crestfallen groom gave it up. 

44 You gib it up,” says the propounder. 
“Well; she says to her coachman, — it’s bery 
mysterous dat de coachman’s name is Plato. 
She says to him, Plato ! ” 

44 What ? ” interjected the other. 

44 Neber interrump de speaker ! ” chided Vol- 
taire. “ She says, 4 Plato, you know my mare.’ 
Says he , 4 Your mare Y olanty, Miss ? ’ Says she, — 
it’s mysterous, but Yolanty is her name, — 4 Now, 
Plato, you jess poot anudder oat in her manger, 
an groom her slick as a liet griddle, and see 
de girts and de bridle is right.’ And says she, 
4 Plato, don’t you complex yer mind wedder de 
answer to dat conundrum ain’t suthin’ about 
runnin’ away. But jess you wait till de sebben 
seal is opened.” 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


249 


Here the namesake of him of Ferney gave 
a wise binocular wink. 

The other philosopher’s namesake also eclipsed 
his whites with a binocular wink. He divined 
where his sire had been travelling in the past 
thirty-six hours. He had nodded through the 
watches of last night to let the senior in un- 
discovered. He knew of the interview with Old 
Sam Galsworthy and Hendrecus Canady, an hour 
before sunrise. He comprehended enough of 
the plot to enjoy it as a magnificent conun- 
drum, which he could guess at all day, sure 
that the seven seals of mystery would be opened, 
by und by. 

Voltaire limped back to the house and his 
pantry. His butler countenance fell, as he con- 
templated the empty bottles of yesterday’s ban- 
quet. He could almost have wept them full, 
if he had known any chemistry to change salt 
tears to wine. 

“ How those redcoats drink ! ” he muttered. 
“ Our cellar wont last many more such cam- 
paigns. I must get up some fresh wine for 
to-day, and a little brandy to deteriorate Maj' 
Kerr.” 

Burns wrote poetry as he pleased, in Scofani, 
in English, or in a United-Kingdom brogue. 
Voltaire takes the same liberty, and talks m n 
tank Tombigbee, now severe Continental, and 

11 * 


250 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


now a lingo of his own. Most men are equally 
inconsistent, and use one slang in the saloon 
and another in the salon. 

Yoltaire lighted a candle, and descended into 
the cellar. 

“ It ’s resky ,” thought he, “ to bring a light, 
without a lantern, among all this straw and 
rubbish. Fire would n’t let go, if it once cotched 
here. But nobody ever comes except me.” 

A flaring dip, very free with sparks, was cer- 
tainly dangerous in this den. Who has not 
seen such a tinder-box of a place under a care- 
less old country-house ? Capital but awesome 
regions they offer for juvenile hide and seek ! 
How densely their black corners are populated 
with Bugaboo ! The hider and the seeker shud- 
der alike in those gloomy caverns, and are glad 
enough to find each other, touch hands and 
bolt for daylight. 

Habit, or possibly his complexion in harmony 
with dusky hues, made Yoltaire independent 
of the terrors of the place. He marched along, 
carefully sheltering his candle with a big paw, 
brown on the back and red on the palm. 

Combustibles were faintly visible in the glim- 
mer. There were empty wine-boxes overflow- 
ing with the straw that once swaddled their 
bottles. There was a barrel of curly shavings, 
a barrel of rags quite limp and out of curl, a 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT, 


251 


barrel of fine flour from the Phillipse Mills, a 
barrel of apples very fragrant, one of onions 
very odorous, a barrel of turnips white and 
shapely, and a bin of potatoes, of the earth, 
earthy, and amorphous as clods. There were 
the staves and hoops of a rotten old beer-cask, 
leaning together, and trying to hold each other 
up, like the decayed members of a dead fac- 
tion. There was a ciderless cider-cask, begin- 
ning to gape at the seams, like a barge out 
of water. Rubbish had certainly called a con- 
gress in this cellar, and the entire rubbish in- 
terest in all its departments had sent deputies. 
Old furniture had a corner to itself, and it was 
melancholy to see there the bottomless chairs 
that people long dead had sat through, the 
posts of old bedsteads sleeping higgledy-piggledy, 
and old tables that had seen too many revels in 
their day, and were tipsily trying to tumble 
under themselves. Then there was a heap of 
old clothes and ole clo’, ghostly in their forlorn- 
ness, lifting up arms and holding forth skirts in 
vain signal for the ragman. It was a gloomy, 
musty, cavernous place, and Voltaire’s faint 
candle only shed a little shady light around. 

The butler unlocked the wine-room door. 
Batteries of dusty bottles in their casemates 
aimed at him, with flashes of yellow-seal at 
their muzzles. 


252 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


“ Three bottles for Major Kerr, — his la, 6 t,” 
he said. “ One, very particular, for Major Sker- 
rett when he comes. One of our French Gutter 
de Rosy brandy to qualify with. Ranks looks 
broken here since Major Kerr come. I must 
close ’em up to-morrow. Bottles likes to lie 
touchin’, so the wine can ripen all alike.” 

The old fellow’s hands were so full that he 
could not lock his door conveniently. He left it 
open for his next visit of reorganization. 

He limped off, running the gauntlet of the 
combustibles. No spark flew, no cinder Ml. 
That masterful plaything, fire, could not be 
allowed to sport with the old rubbish. 

How Voltaire proceeded to carry on his pri- 
vate share of the plot by deteriorating Keir’a 
allowance of Madeira with Cognac, is a secret of 
the butler’s pantry. It shall not be here re- 
vealed. Why deteriorate the morals of 1860 by 
recalling forgotten methods of cheating ? Ad al- 
teration is a lost art, thank Bacchus ! We drink 
only pure juices now. Only honest wines for 
our honest dollars in this honest age. 

Now from the cellar we will mount to the 
room above stairs, where Penelope and her 
maids — no, not Penelope, for she was loyal and 
disconsolate — where Mrs. Brothertoft and her 
maids are at work at the san-benito for 
morrow’s auto-da-fe. 


VIII. 


If there was a Dieden in 1777, she has gone 
with the braves who lived before Agamemnon, 
and like them is forgotten. 

If there had been a Dieden in little New York 
of those days, she would not have been called in 
to make Miss Brothertoft’s san-benito , her wed- 
ding-dress. 

The resources of the Manor were sufficient. 
Mrs. Brothertoft could plan the robe. Mrs. De- 
witt could execute it. Sally Bilsby also lent a 
’prentice hand. The silk, white, stiff, and with a 
distinct bridal rustle, had been bought to order 
by Bilsby junior, on one of his traitorous trips 
to New York. 

Lucy, leaving Yoltaire in the pantry, as was 
described, ran up stairs and faced her wedding- 
dress without flinching. It is not generally a 
sight to blanch the cheeks of a young lady. 
Indeed, one may fancy that a rose finer than 
roses might bud in the heart, and bloom from 
neck to forehead, when a bride first beheld the 
lily-white drapery of her hour of immolation. 


254 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


Lucy neither blanched nor blushed. 

“ Be brave ! be prudent ! ” the warning of her 
unseen protector was ringing in her ears. She 
saw it, inscribed on a label, and hanging from 
the lips of her vision of his face. The brave do 
not blanch. The prudent do not blush. So she 
quietly joined the busy circle, took a needle and 
stabbed the wedding-dress without mercy. 

It was a monstrous relief thus to kill time. 
She did herself, for the hour, “ her quietus make 
with a bare bodkin,” and the other weapons of 
a modiste. 

“ Stitch, stitch, stitch ! Seam, and gusset, and band ! ” 

“ Ah ! ” she thought, “ what a blessing is this 
distraction of labor ! I have shed my tears. If 
I were to sit inactive, I might brood myself 
into despair. If I were to think over my 
wrong, I might flame out too soon. If I look 
at my mother, I begin to dread her again. I 
know she could master me still. 0 my God ! 
sustain me through these last hours of my peril ! 
I never knew how great it was until now. I 
foresaw a misery ; but the degradation of giving 
myself up to this man, I never even dreamed 
of. I am ashamed, ashamed to recall that there 
have been instants when I tolerated him, — when 
I thought that he was not so very gross and 
coarse. 1 pray God that the sacredness of i oy 
soul is not spoilt.” 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


255 


A great agony stirred in her maidenly bosom 
at this thought. She bent closer to her work. 
She knew that her mother’s eyes were upon her. 
She heard, without marking, the tattle of the 
maids. 

“ Fly, little needle ! ” she said to herself. 
“ Measure off this pause in my life ! Every 
stitch is a second. Sixty are a minute. Min- 
utes make hours, and hours wear out the weary 
day. Evening must come. If I can but be 
brave and prudent, I shall see my father and his 
noble friend, and be safe.” 

Her needle galloped at the excitement of the 
thought. 

Mrs. Brothertoft looked at her, and said to her 
heart, with a sneer, — “ Pretty creature ! she con- 
soles herself, it seems. Our boozy, rubicund 
bridegroom begins to look quite pale and inter- 
esting, seen through a bridal veil. The touch of 
white silk cures her scruples easily. Ah ! the 
blushing bride will be resigned to her bliss. 
Bah! that I — I should dread such a pretty, 
silly trifler! What a fool I was to think her 
different from other simpering girls ! So, this is 
the meaning of all her coy little wiles and her 
headaches. Headaches ! she may have as many 
as she pleases now, in her pensive bower. Ah ! 
I comprehend thee now, fair hypocrite. The 
slender fingers are impatient for the ring. Fly, 


256 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


little bird, to the bosom of thy spouse. Perhaps 
he will not quite crush thy poor, silly heart. 
And I have been afraid of her ! She is so tickled 
with her wedding favors, that she will presently 
be kissing me again for gratitude with more 
fervor than ever. But I am sick of her sim- 
plicity. I am tired of her ‘ Dearest mammas ! ’ 
i should strangle her, I dare say, if she were 
not taken off. She grows more like that Edwin 
Brothertoft lately.” 

“ Your dress is ready to try on, Miss Lucy,” 
said Mrs. Jierck Dewitt. 

So there was a mighty rustle, and a headless, 
armless torso of stiff white silk rose up and stood 
on its skirt. It did Dewitt great credit. Ah! 
if her character had only been equal to her skill ! 
But she was a brazen hussy, and Sally, her sister, 
no better. Tel maitre , tel valet . One positively 
bad woman spoils many negatively bad ones. It 
would not seem at all unfair if Destiny took ad- 
vantage of the harm done Jierck Dewitt’s wife 
in punishing the lady of the Manor through her 
means. 

Lucy still faced her wedding-dress without 
flinching. She may even have thought that, if 
the worst came, it was better to go to the guil- 
lotine in becoming array. It is perhaps woman 
to say, “ My heart is broken ; but my bodice fits 
without a fold.” 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


25 , 

It is woman, no doubt, but there are women 
awd Women. Lucy could safely admire the robe, 
and tranquilly criticise it, because she knew that 
she and it were not to see marriage together. 

“ Now shall I unlace you, Miss Lucy ? ” says 
the abigail. 

Yes, abigail ; as soon as these masculine eyes, 
whose business is with the young lady’s soui. 
not with her toilette, can take themselves dec- 
orously out of the room. 


IX. 


Nombre de Dieden ! what a fit ! 

Unlacing and relacing concluded, these ma& 
culine eyes, again admitted to the maiden’s bower, 
are dazzled with unexpected loveliness. 

There stands the lady, within the perfect 
dress ! ! ! beautiful to three points of admiration. 
Sweet eighteen can bear low neck by broad day- 
light. 

The struggle in her heart with all her wild 
emotions of terror and hope was as great a 
beautifier as the presence of critical wedding- 
guests, the rustle of a surplice, the electric touch 
of a gay gold ring, and the first clasp of the hand 
of a husband. 

And you, 0 Peter Skerrett ! you have shaved 
off* your moustache and donned a coat much too 
small, — you have made a guy of yourself for 
your first interview with this angel ! 

Shall the personal impression she may already 
have made be here revised and corrected ? No ; 
for this is not real sunshine upon her. If she is 
ever photographed, it shall be in her bright, not 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT 


259 


in her dark day. Let her wait till fuller ma- 
turity for description! It is easy to see the 
Brothertoft in her. She blends the tender grace 
of the lady in Vandyck’s picture with the quiet 
dignity of the gentleman. But is there not kin- 
dling in her face the vigor of another race, her 
mother’s? Perhaps a portrait now would belie 
her final look. 

“ You are like an angel, Miss Lucy,” said Mrs. 
Dewitt. 

She was. She stood there in bridal robe, veil, 
and wreath. Her hands were clasped firm to 
control her insurgent heart. Her lips were 
parted, and she was whispering to herself, “ Be 
brave ! Be prudent ! ” Her eyes overlooked the 
present, and saw hope in the blue sky above the 
golden Highlands through her window. 

Yes; like an angel. 

There was a hush for a moment. The three 
bad women — the pert hoyden, the false wife, and 
the proud mistress of the Manor — were silenced 
and abashed. 

Again the old pang stirred in the mother’s bosom. 
Again she longed to throw herself at her daugh- 
ter’s feet and pray forgiveness. But again she 
gained that defeat of a victory over her woman- 
liness. She trampled down the weakness of re- 
pentance. The bedlam look flickered over her 
features, and she hardly restrained her furious 


260 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


impulse to leap forward and rend the innocent 
face and the maiden bosom that so shamed her. 

“ You do look just like an angel, Miss Lucy,” 
Abby Dewitt asseverated, with the air of a con- 
naisseuse in the article. “ Don’t she, Sally ? ” 

The two thereupon gave tongue to voluble 
flatteries. 

“ Your work does you great credit, Dewitt,” 
Lucy said. “ Mamma, cannot we spare Abby 
and Sally to go home to the farm to-night? 
They deserve a holiday after this long confine- 
ment. And to-morrow will be a busy day again.” 

“ Of course, my dear, if they wish it.” Mrs. 
Brothertoft was glad to put her daughter under 
obligation. 

The women again gave tongue with thanks. 
They were always, as Yoltaire had said, ready to 
get away for a frolic. Lucy smiled to herself at 
the easy success of her stratagem. She had 
packed off* baggage and baggage, without sus- 
picion. 

“ What a conspirator I am becoming ! ” she 
thought. “ Ah ! silly Lucy, the child, the thing 
to be flung away ! She too can help baffle the 
evil schemes against herself. When these coarse 
women are gone, there will be not a soul but 
friends within a mile of the house.” 

Dinner was tardy to-day, after the late break 
fast following the revel. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


261 


Nine-oxygen azote by the lung-full had given 
tone to Major Kerr’s system. His appetite for 
meat and drink were in full force again, all the 
stouter for this morning’s respite. 

“ What a lucky dog I am,” he said, “ to dodge 
that expedition of Vaughan’s ! I ’m ‘ the soldier 
tired of war’s alarms,’ Miss Lucy.” 

u You do not care about laurels any more,” 
Mrs. Brotliertoft said, with her half-sneer. 

“ Not when I can get roses.” 

His look with this brought fire into Lucy’s 
cheeks. 

“ No,” resumed he ; “I should be glad enough 
to help burn the dashed rebels’ houses over their 
heads, and them, too, in their beds. Here ’s con- 
fusion to ’em, and luck to Jack Burgoyne ! I 
hate the vulgar ‘ varmint.’ But I don’t want to 
leave a good dinner to see bonfires. I know 
where I’m well off, and going to be better. 
Eh, Miss Lucy?” 

Her heart began to throb and her head to 
ache at once. 

“This goose has got a bark on thick as an 
oak-tree,” continued the valiant trencherman, 
making an incision. “ Give me another cut of 
beef, — the red, with plenty of fat and plenty of 
gravy, if you please, my mamma that shall be. 
I need support when the parson opens his bat- 
teries to-morrow. Eh, Miss Lucy ? ‘ With this 


262 


EDWIN RROTHERTOFT. 


ring thee I wed, and with all my worldly — ’ 
Hain’t got any goods. I ’ll endow you with all 
my worldly debts, and tell the Jews to shift 
the security. Haw, haw ! ” 

He laughed boisterously. 

This coarse paean stirred up echoes of repul- 
sion in Lucy’s heart. 

How she longed to fling defiance at him! 
Patience, — she almost bit the word in two, with 
her teeth set hard upon it. One rash expres- 
sion would be ruin ; but great red-hot shot of 
scorn burned within her. She discovered that 
there was strong language in her vocabulary. 
It grew significant to her now. She was begin- 
ning to half understand herself at last. When 
the boiler grows hot, the water feels its latent 
steam. 

“ Am I the same being ? ” she thought. “ Am 
I the meek Consent I have pitied and wept with 
so long ? No, I have ceased to be a spiritless no- 
body. I am almost sorry that help from without 
is coming to me. I should like to stand up now 
and say, ‘ Madam, of you as a woman I will not 
speak, — as a mother, you are a tyrant, and I 
defy you. I defy you and this brute, not half so 
base as you, whom you have dared to name by 
the sacred name of lover, whom you have called 
in to aid you in dishonoring your child.’ Yes ; 
I could almost say that to her now. Is it pos- 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


268 


sible ? Is it possible that a woman can so hate a 
woman ? I never felt what the sanctity of my 
womanhood was until now, — now that I per- 
ceive this miserable plot against it.” 

This defiant mood was strong within her. 
But presently, as she looked at Kerr, growing 
redder with too much dinner and too much 
wine, laughing at his own coarse jokes and 
throwing at her witli great vulgar compliments ; 
and when all at once, in contrast, rose the figure 
of the other Major as she had painted him, — 
disgust so mastered her that she sprang up, 
pleaded a headache, and fled to her chamber, to 
wait and hope and doubt and pray alone. 

“ Megrims again,” said the lover, sulkily, as 
she disappeared. “ I don’t like it. She did n’t 
run away from Jack Andr6 yesterday.” 

“ 0, let her amuse herself with headaches, if 
she pleases,” said the Lady of the Manor. “I 
understand the child. I saw her this morning 
over her wedding-dress. She is as eager for 
the happy moment as any lover could wish.” 
a So you think she shams coy ? ” 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Brothertoft; and she was 
willing to believe it. 

“Well, good night, pretty creature ! Let it 
go up stairs and think how sweet it will look 
to-morrow in its silks and laces ! What, are you 
going too, my mamma ? ” 


264 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


“ Yes. Take your glass of wine quietly. We 
will have supper late. I am going to doze a 
little in the parlor. I dreamed troublesome 
dreams last night.” 

“ By George ! ” said Kerr, as she closed the 
door. “ Splendid woman ! Twice as handsome 
as the Duchess of Gurgoyle ! I suppose she 
thinks the Kerrs will take her up when she 
goes to England. No, ma’am ! We can ’t quite 
stand that. You ’ve got all you can expect out 
of me when you ’ve married off your daughter 
on me. Now, then, it ’s going to be solemn busi 
ness, drinking alone.” 


X. 


Plot and counterplot at Brothertoft Manor. 
And meantime, what has counterplot without the 
house been doing ? 

If Edwin Brothertoft and Peter Skerrett could 
have travelled by daylight through the High- 
lands, then this narrative, marching with them, 
might have seen what fine things they saw, and 
told of them. But they went cautiously by 
night. They saw little but the stars overhead 
and the faint traces of their shy path. They 
were not distracted by grand views. Nature is a 
mere impertinence to men who are filled with a 
purpose. Fortunately, these intense purposes do 
not last a lifetime. Minds become disengaged, 
and then they go back, and make apologies to 
Nature for not admiring her. And she, minding 
her own business, cares as little for the compli- 
ment as for the slight. 

It is a bit of the world worth seeing, that 
bossy belt of latitude between Fishkill and 
Brothertoft Manor. There is a very splendid 
pageant to behold there in the halcyon days of 
12 


266 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


October, the ruddy, the purple, the golden, when 
every tree is a flame, or a blush, or a dash of 
blood or deep winy crimson on the gray rocks of 
the moimtains. The Hudson Highlands do not 
wrangle about height with the Alps ; but they 
content themselves with wearing a more gor- 
geous autumn on their backs than any mountains 
on the globe. Go and see ! Frost paints as 
bravely now as it did in 1777, and it is safer to 
travel. Bellona has decamped from the land, 
and half-way from Fishkill down the pass, Mi- 
nerva, fair-haired, contralto-voiced, and cour- 
teous, keeps school and presides over the sixty- 
third milestone from New York. Go and see 
the Highlands for yourself! The business of 
these pages is mainly with what hearts suffer and 
become under pressure, little with what eyes 
survey. 

Danger is safety to the prudent. Major Sker- 
rett and his guide made their perilous journey 
without mishap. At the chilly dawn of day, we 
find them at the rendezvous in the hills behind 
Peekskill, trying to believe that there was warmth 
in the warm colors of the woods, and waiting for 
Jierck Dewitt. 

Presently he appeared, in high spirits. 

“ We ’ve come in the nick of time,” said he. 
“ The redcoats have done all the harm they could 
about here. They ’ve drawed in every man, and 


EDWIN BR0THERT0F1 


267 


are off at sunrise up river for Kingston, They 
allow, if they set a few towns afire, that General 
Gates will turn his back to Burgoyne and take 
to passin’ buckets.” 

“ Bang ! ” here spoke the sunrise gun at Fort 
Montgomery. 

“Bang! bang! bang!” the three frigates re- 
sponded. 

Dunderberg grumbled with loud echoes. He 
was pleased to be awaked by the song of birds ; 
but the victorious noise of British cannon he 
protested against, like a good American. 

“ The coast is clear for us,” resumed Jierck. 
“ Clear almost as if these were peace times. 
Now if you’ll come along, I’ll take you to a 
safe den in the woods, a mile from the Manor- 
House, where you can stay all day, snug as a 
chipmunk in a chestnut stump, and see how the 
land lies, I’ll tell you my other news as we 
go.” 

They took up their guns and knapsacks and 
followed. The light of morning was fair and 
tender. The autumn colors were exhilarating. 
White frost shone upon the slopes and glim- 
mered upon every leaf in the groves. 

These were the Manor lands. Each spot Ed- 
win Brothertoft remembered as a scene of his 
childhood’s discoveries of facts and mysteries 
in Nature. They walked on for an hour, and 


268 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


Brothertoft grew almost gay with memories of 
his youth. 

“ Do you see that white shining through the 
trees ? ” said Jierck, halting. “ It ’s the river. 
Ten steps and you ’ll see the house. Now, Major, 
I ’ll go and look after my boys, and come at noon 
for your orders.” 

Jierck turned back into the wood. Major 
Skerrett stepped forward eagerly. He had an 
eye for a landscape. He had also a soldier’s 
eye for every new bit of possible battle-field. 

Ten steps brought him to the edge of the 
slope. A transcendent prospect suddenly flung 
out its colors before him. First was a stripe of 
undulating upland thoroughly Octobered. Then 
a stripe of river, bending like a belt in a flag, 
that a breeze is twisting between its fingers. 
Then beyond, Highlands, not so glowing as the 
foreground, nor so sparkling blue as the blue 
water, nor so simple as the sky, softly combined 
and repeated all the elements of beauty before 
him. 

He turned to give and take sympathy from his 
companion. Mr. Brothertoft was not beside him. 
He had seated himself within cover of the wood. 

“ Come out, sir ! ” called Skerrett with enthu- 
siasm. “ I am so bewildered with this beautiful 
prospect that I need to hear another man’s su- 
perlatives to satisfy me I am not in a dream. 
Come out, sir I We are quite safe.” 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


269 


“ My friend,” said Brothertoft. “ I was hesi- 
tating a moment before I risked the quenching 
of my strange good spirits. You are looking 
upon a scene that has been very dear and very 
sad to me. I cannot see it, as you do, with a 
stranger’s eye. It is to me the scenery of trage- 
dy. I cannot tell yet whether I have outgrown 
the wound enough to tolerate the place where 
I first felt it.” 

He moved forward, and took his place by the 
Major’s side. The two stood silent a moment. 

Thus far the younger, in his robust appetite for 
the beauty of Nature, had felt “ no need of the 
remoter charm by thought supplied.” Color and 
form he took as a hungry child takes meat and 
drink. Now for the first time there was history 
in his picture, sorrow upon his scene. He made 
his friend’s sadness his own, and looked through 
this melancholy mist at the gold, the sheen, and 
the bloom. His mere physical elation at this in- 
toxicating revelry of color passed away. Beauty 
left his head and went to his heart. 

He turned to see how his companion was 
affected. 

“ I find,” said Brothertoft, “ that I do not hate 
these dear old scenes. Indeed, the flush and the 
fervor of this resplendent season enter into me. 
I am cheered enough to pardon myself all my 
faults, and all who have wronged me for their 


270 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


wrongs. It is grand to feel so young and brave 
again.” 

For a moment there was bold light in his eyes 
and vigor in his bearing. The light faded pres- 
ently and the vigor drooped. He was again the 
stricken man, aged prematurely by sorrow. 

“ But, my son,” continued the elder, “ I cannot 
quite sustain myself in this cheerful mood. I 
look at my forefathers’ house, and think of my 
daughter, and I doubt.” 

Skerrett followed the direction of his eyes and 
studied the Manor-House. 

It stood on a small plateau, half a mile from 
the river, in the midst of its broad principality. 
There was not such another house then in Amer- 
ica. There are few enough now, town or coun- 
try, cottage or palace, over whose doors may be 
seen the unmistakable cartouche of a gentle- 
man. 

The first Edwin Brothertoft built his house 
after the model of the dear old dilapidated seat 
in Lincolnshire. It was only one fourth the size ; 
but it had kept the grand features of its proto- 
type. Skerrett could see and admire the four 
quaint gables, two front and two rear, the sturdy 
stack of warm chimneys, and the corner tower 
with its peaked hat, — such as towers built in 
James the First’s time wore. It bristled well in 
the landscape. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


271 


It was a century old. That must be a very 
unsociable kind of house which will not make 
itself at home in the space of a century. In a 
hundred years the Manor-House and buildings 
and their scenery had learnt perfect harmony 
with each other. Wherever trees were wanted 
for shade or show, they had had time to choose 
their post and grow stately. Those stalks which 
know nothing but to run up lank, for plank, had 
long been felled and uprooted. There were no 
awkward squads of bushes, stuck about where 
they could not stand at ease ; but orderly little 
companies of shrubbery and evergreens had nes- 
tled wherever a shelter invited them, or wherever 
a shoulder of lawn wanted an epaulet. Creep- 
ers had chosen those panels of wall which needed 
sheltering from heat or cold, and had measured 
precisely how much peering into windows and 
drooping over doors could be permitted. The 
little Dutch bricks of the sides and the freestone 
of the quoins and trimmings, their coloring re- 
vised by the pencils of a hundred quartettes of 
seasons, now were as much in tone with the 
scene as the indigenous rocks of the soil. Ab- 
solute good taste had reigned at Brothertoft 
Manor for a century. Its results justified the 
government thoroughly. The present proprie- 
tress had been educated out of her gaudy fancies 
by this fine example of the success of a better 


272 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


method. She had altered nothing, and made her 
repairs and additions chime with the ancient 
harmony. 

At this moment, too, of Peter Skerrett’s in- 
spection, the landscape about the house wore 
its wealthiest garniture. Each maple in the 
grounds had crimsoned its ruddiest, or purpled 
its winiest, or gilded its leaves, every one witli 
a film of burnished gold. The elms were all at 
their gayest yellow or their warmest brown, and 
stiff masculine chestnuts beside them rivalled 
their tints, if they could not their grace. Here 
and there was a great oak, resolute not to 
adopt these new-fangled splendors of gaudy day, 
and wearing still the well-kept coat of green 
which had served him all summer. Younger 
gentlemen of the same family, however, would 
not be behind the times, and stood about their 
ancestor in handsome new doublets of murrey 
color. Every slash and epaulet of shrubbery 
was gold on the green of the lawn, and creep- 
ers blazed on the walls and dropped their scarlet 
trailers, like flames, before the windows. 

“ It is a dear old dignified place,” said Peter 
Skerrett, “ and I wish I could go down and 
make a quiet call tlieie by daylight. I will, 
by and by, after the war, unless the rebels 
punish it with fire for having dined Sir Henry 
Clinton.” 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


273 


u It is a dear old place,” said Brotliertoft, 
u and I love it most dearly as the school-house 
of my education in sorrow. No man is con- 
vinced of his own immortality until his soul 
has borne as murderous blows as can be struck, 
and still is not murdered. I come to the place 
where the hardest hitting at my peace has been 
done, and I feel a new sense of power because 
I find that there is something in me that is 
not quite devastated. On the old battle-field, 
I Deceive that I am not wholly beaten, and 
can never be.” 

He said this in a tone of soliloquy. Peter 
Skerrett was too young to thoroughly under- 
stand his friend. Besides, he was conscious of 
a frantic hunger, — an excellent thing in a hero. 

“ Come, sir,” said he, “ shall we breakfast ? I 
have remarked that swallowing dawn is an ap- 
petizer. Here goes at my knapsack, to see what 
General Putnam’s cook has done for us.” 

The cook had done as well as a rebel larder 
allowed. They did well by the viands, and 
then, under cover of the wood, they wore away 
the morning watchfully. 

They saw boats from the frigates land men to 
be drilled ashore or to forage in the village of 
Peekskill. Here and there a farmer, braver 
or stupider than his neighbors, was to be dis- 
cerned, ploughing and sowing for next summer 

12* B 


274 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


as if war were a hundred miles away. Carts 
appeared creeping timidly along the country 
roads. The cattle seemed to feed cautiously 
and sniff about, lest Cowboys should catch them. 
The whole scene wore a depressed and appre- 
hensive air. Brothertoft Manor was willing to 
be well with both sides, and was equally un- 
comfortable with both. The tenants of the 
Manor were generally trying to persuade them- 
selves that British frigates in the river were 
merely marts for their eggs and chickens. Men 
that have not made up their minds are but 
skulking creatures on God’s earth. 

“ Seems to me,” said Skerrett, “ that I can 
tell a Tory or a Neutral as far as I can see 
him.” 

The day wore on, and in this pause of action 
the two gentlemen opened their hearts to each 
other. 

It was the intercourse of father and son. 
Each wanted what the other gave him. 

The fatherless junior felt his mind grow deeper 
with a man who had touched bottom in thought. 
He was sobered and softened by the spectacle 
of one so faithful to the truth that was in him, 
so gentle, so indulgent, weakened perhaps by 
sorrow, but never soured. 

The sonless senior said. “ Ah, Skerrett! you 
are the young oak. If I had had you to lean upon, 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


275 


I should not have lost force to climb and bloom. 
Such a merry heart as yours makes the whole 
world laugh, — not empty laughter, but hearty.” 

At noon Jierck Dewitt came to report. He 
and the boys were safely hid in his father’s 
barn. 

“ Ike mostly sleeps,” says Jierck, “ Sam plays 
old sledge with dummy, and Hendrecus is writin’ 
something in short lines all beginnin’ with big 
letters, poetry perhaps. He ’s an awful great 
scholar.” 

Their plans were again discussed, and orders 
issued. 

“ Well,” said Jierck, “ at dusk I ’ll have my 
men, and father’s runt pony for the prisoner to 
straddle, down at the forks of the road waitin’ 
for you. Nothing can stop us now but one 
thing.” 

“ And that ? ” asked the Major. 

“ Is Lady Brothertoft. If she suspicions any- 
thing before we ’re ready to run, H will be all 
up with us, — halter round our necks and all 
up among the acorns.” 

So Jierck, still “ stiff as the Lord Chancellor,” 
and yet limber as a snake in the grass, took 
his departure. 

Afternoon hours went slower than the morn- 
ing hours. 

u The sun always seems to me to hold back 


276 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


in going down hill,” Skerrett said. “I wish 
he would tumble to bed faster. I am impatient 
to make our success sure.” 

“ Your sturdy confidence reassures me,” re- 
turned Brothertoft. “ I am happy there is one 
of us whose heart-beats will not unsteady him. 
I lose hope when I think what failure means to 
my daughter.” 

“ I must keep myself the cool outsider, with 
only a knight- errant’s share in this adventure,” 
Peter said. 

A hard task he found this ! The father so 
charmed him that he felt himself, for his sake, 
taking a very tender fraternal interest in the 
young lady. It was so easy to picture her in 
her chamber, not a mile away, looking tearfully 
for help toward the hills. It was so easy to 
fancy her face, — her father’s, with the bloom 
of youth instead of the shades of sorrow; and 
her character, — her father’s, with all this gen- 
tleness that perhaps weakened him, in her but 
sweet womanliness. Peter Skerrett perceived to 
the full the romance of the adventure. He 
frequently felt the undeveloped true lover in 
him grow restive. He thought that he was all 
the time putting down that turbulent personage. 
Perhaps he was. But it must be avowed that 
he often regretted his moustache, despised his 
ill-fitting coat, and only consoled himself by re* 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


277 


calling, “ It will be night, and she will only half 
see me.” As evening approached, Peter Skorrett 
perceived that his desire to redeem this fair 
victim from among the bad and the base was 
become a passion. He also noticed that its fervor 
kept him cool and steady. 

Silent sunset came. The crisis drew near. 
Doubts began to curdle in Edwin Brothertoft’s 
mind. He looked over the broad landscape, and 
along the solemn horizon, and all his own past 
spread before him, sad-colored and dreary. 

“ Ah my beautiful childhood ! ” he thought. 
“Ah my ardent youth, my aspiring manhood, 
my defeated prime ! My life utterly defeated, 
as the world measures defeat, — and all through 
her ! All through her, the woman I loved with 
my whole heart ! Please God we may not meet 
to-night ! Please Heaven we may never meet 
until her dark hour comes ! Please Heaven that 
when the loneliness of sin comes upon her, and 
the misery of a worse defeat than any I have felt 
is hers, — that then at last I may be ready with 
such words of pardon as she needs ! ” 

“ See ! ” said Skerrett, softly. “ It is dark. 
There is a light in your daughter’s window. We 
will go to her.” 

“ In the name of God ! ” said the father. 


XI. 


Scene, the interior of Squire Dewitt’s barn. 

Hay at the sides, hay at the back, and great 
mountains of hay rise into the dusky regions of 
the loft. 

In the centre stands Jierck Dewitt, just re- 
turned from his noon interview with Major Sker- 
rett. 

At the left sits Ike Yan Wart, asleep, with his 
mouth open. Perhaps, like Yoltaire, he hears 
partially with his tonsils. 

On the right, old Sam Galsworthy is killing 
time with old sledge for a weapon. His right 
hand has just beaten his left and won the 
stakes, — viz.: twelve oats. 

Hendrecus Canady stealthily approaches the 
gaping sleeper on the left. He holds a head 
of timothy-grass, — in these times of war we 
perceive that it is a good model for a cannon 
sponge. Hendrecus introduces timothy’s head 
into Yan Wart’s mouth, and begins to tickle the 
tonsils and palate, so rosy. 

To these enters pretty Katy Dewitt, blushing 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT, 


279 


and smiling. Fragrance comes with her; and 
well it may, for she bears dinner, — a deep yel- 
low dish of pork and beans and a pumpkin-pie 
exquisitely varnished. 

Tender-hearted Jierck Dewitt at once remem- 
bered the wife who in happier days crisped his 
pork and sweetened his pie. 

Hendrecus dropped his tickler into Yan Wart, 
and sprang up to help his sweetheart. Her 
pretty smiles stirred happy smiles on his face, — 
a bright and good-humored one, though still 
of pill-fed complexion. His lover-like attentions 
brought out a blush on her cheeks. That fair 
color seemed to make the old barn glow and all 
the hay-mow bloom with fresh heads of pink 
clover. 

Poor Jierck Dewitt recalled how there were 
once smiles as gay and blushes as tender between 
him and a damsel as buxom. 

Poor fellow ! his dinner did him no good. He 
grew moodier and moodier. The little scene be- 
tween his sister and Hendrecus had made him 
miserable. He could not sleep like Yan Wart, 
nor play cards with Galsworthy, nor skylark with 
Hendrecus. He sat brooding over his sorrow. 
His powers of self-control were weakened. He 
could not throw off this weight of an old bitter- 
ness. A great vague misery oppressed him. He 
began to fear his wits were going. 


280 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


“ If I could only get these ugly feelings into 
shape,” he thought, “ I could grapple with them 
and choke them down. I must do something, 
or I shall go mad. I believe I’ll steal round 
through the woods to where I can see old Bils- 
by’s house and the chestnut-tree where Abby 
first said she ’d have me. Looking at the places 
may help me to drag this grief out of myself and 
put it on them.” 

Now that the British troops were withdrawn 
for Yauglian’s expedition, Jierck felt quite secure 
in dodging about the woods of the Manor. He 
left his companions in the barn, and stole off 
toward his father-in-law’s old red farm-house. 
He felt as if he were his own ghost, compelled 
to haunt a spot where he had been murdered. 

It was quiet sunset. The golden light of 
evening was among the golden woods. The 
forest showered golden leaves upon the ground, 
and melted away in golden motes across the 
level sunbeams. 

Jierck stole along until he came to a little 
glade, crossed by a pathway. A great chestnut- 
tree had made the glade its own. Lesser plants 
were easily thrust back by its stout overshadow- 
ing branches, and its brethren of the forest had 
willingly given place to see what their brother 
would do with its chance of greatness. It had 
done nobly. It was an example to trees and th# 


EDWIN BKOTHERTOFT 


281 


world, of the wisdom of standing by one’s roots, 
expanding to one’s sunshine, and letting one’s 
self grow like a fine old vegetable. 

This had been Jierck’s trysting-tree in the 
times when the pastoral poem of his life was 
writing itself, a canto a day. Under this chest- 
nut, one summer’s eve, when the whole tree was 
a great bouquet of flowery tassels, Jierck bad 
suddenly ventured to pop his shy question. Full- 
throated robins up in those very branches had 
shouted his sweetheart’s “ Yes,” for all the bi- ds 
and breezes to repeat. 

Jierck, hidden in the thicket, looked kindly at 
the old tree. He smiled to recall the meetings 
there when he was a timid, clumsy lover. For 
a moment’ recollections, half comic and all pleas- 
ant, banished his agony of a man betrayed by 
a disloyal woman. 

But presently he heard sounds that were not 
the light clash of falling leaf with fallen leaf. 
Footsteps and voices were coming. Jierck with- 
drew a little and watched. Two women appeared 
up the pathway, following their long shadows. 
They came out into the glade. It was his wife 
and her sister, furloughed for the evening, and 
on their way homeward. 

Jierck beheld the woman’s story written oil 
her face, — the tablet where all stories of live** 
are written for decipherers to read. He saw 


282 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


no wish there to expunge or revise the later 
chapters. His wife was still an insolent, brazen 
woman, the counterpart of her mistress on a 
lower plane. 

Poor Jierck ! he had been drawn to this spot, 
so he felt, to see his murderess and be stabbed 
over again. The exceeding weight of his agony 
came crushing down upon him. He shivered. 
It seemed to him that snow must suddenly have 
fallen with sunset. A moment ago it was not 
spring, nor summer, but very tolerable autumn ; 
now winter had come, chilly and dreary. A 
friendless place to him this traitor world ! Jierck 
felt smitten with degradation. He was utterly 
miserable, and the old chestnut-tree insulted him 
with memories of his dead hopes of happiness. 

“I must have comfort, 1 ” thought Jierck. 

When sorrow is too sharp to be borne, and 
comfort must be had at once, men go to the 
anodynes and stimulants. Kosmos provides 
these in great variety. The four of most uni- 
versal application are, 

Tobacco, Alcohol, Marriage, Death. 

Poor Jierck Dewitt wanted comfort at once. 
A whiff of smoke from his pipe was not con- 
centrated enough, and he could not wait to 
try what virtue there was in bigamy. 

“ Rum or this ! ” he said wildly. The alter- 
native “ this ” seemed to attract him for an 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


283 


instant. He drew his knife from his belt, and 
felt along the cold edge. Was he about to taste 
that mighty narcotic, Death ? 

Death ! He touched his knife-blade. Gloom 
alighted upon the landscape. The golden woods 
grew lurid. Silence, deeper than he had ever 
known, deepened and deepened, until he fancied 
that Nature was hushed and listening for his 
death-moan. 

An imagined picture grew before his eyes : — 
Time, morning. Scene, this glade of the big 
chestnut. A man lies under the tree. The 
first sunbeams melt the frost that dabbles his 
hair. He must be a sound sleeper, for a chip- 
munk has picked his pockets of their crumbs, 
and now stands on his forehead, chuckling over 
his breakfast. Mrs. Jierck Dewitt enters the 
glade. She sees the sleeper. She starts, and 
approaches cautiously. She stares, and then 
looks up with a great, bold smile of relief and 
scorn. For the sleeper is her husband. He 
lies dead, with a knife in his breast. 

“ No ! ” hissed Jierck, dashing away this pic- 
ture from his eyes. “I ’ll not kill myself to 
please her.” 

“ Rum ! I must have rum, or I shall go mad. 
The old man’s jug will be in the old place in the 
kitchen cupboard,” he continued. 

He skulked along rapidly through the woods, 


284 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


like a beast of prey. The great dull agony 
in his heart paused a moment. He could keep 
it down from maddening him, while he thought 
of his sorry consolation to come. 

It was growing dusk now, and he was reck- 
less. He stopped by the kitchen window of 
his father’s house and peered in. 

The family were at supper. These were the 
early years of the Revolution, and war had not 
yet utterly desolated this region. Squire De- 
witt’s was still a prosperous household, and he, 
a fine old patriarch, presided at a liberal board. 
Opposite him sat the mild mother of the house. 
The harmony of a lifetime of love and com- 
panion thinking on companion cares had made 
her expression almost identical with her hus- 
band’s. Pretty Kate, a daughter of her parents’ 
old age, bustled the meal along, and hoped her 
Hendrecus was not getting hungry. Jierck’s 
other sister, a widow, was making two smiles 
grow in the place of one, on her boy Tommy’s 
round face, by cutting his gingerbread fatter 
than usual. The cat, from a dresser, watched 
every morsel and every sip, with a feline look, 
which is a thief look. 

This homely scene, instead of soothing poor 
Jierck, was double bitterness to him. 

“ Curse the woman I made my wife ! ” he 
thought. “ She has spoilt my chance of home 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


285 


and fireside, of a happy age and children to 
love and reverence me. Curse her for making 
me hate my life ! ” 

He turned away, half mean, half fierce, and 
stole in by the back-door to the cupboard. 

Those were times, remember, before the demi- 
john and the spinning-wheel had given way to 
Webster’s Unabridged and the melodeon. In 
every farmer’s pantry stood a Dutch-bellied 
stone jug. It was corked with a corn cob, and 
looked arrogantly through the window at the 
old oaken bucket. Was there molasses in that 
jug ? Not so ; but rum fitzmolasses. The well- 
sweep grew stiff for want of exercise, moss 
covered the dry-rotten bucket, green slime in 
the stagnant well was only broken by the 
plunges of lonely old “ Rigdumbonnimiddikai- 
mo ” ; but the rum-jug was always alert and 
jolly, and never had time to look vacuous before 
it was a plenum again. It is hard to imagine 
those ages ; for we have changed our manners 
now. Our brandy is dried up, our rum has 
run away, and this is not a land flowing with 
Monongahela. 

Jierck stole, like a thief, into the pantry. 
There sat the great jug, as of yore. It was of 
gray stone-ware with blue splashes. Its spout 
was fashioned into a face on the broad grin. 
* Comfort here ! ” the grinning mask seemed to 


286 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


wink, and did not reveal how short-lived and 
bastard was the comfort it promised. Jierck 
heaved up its clumsy heft, balanced it upon 
his lips, and swigged. 

Yes, — not to be squeamish in terms, — this 
Patriot of the Revolution swigged. This was 
not patriotic, nor under the circumstances hon- 
orable, nor in any way wise or prudent. And 
of course, as his provocation is unknown to our 
time, we cannot appreciate his reckless despair. 

If he had only stopped when he had enough ! 
At the present day we never take too much of 
our anodynes and our stimulants. One weed, 
one toddy, one wife, one million, one Presiden- 
tial term, — whenever wisdom whispers, Satis, 
we pause and echo, “ Satis ’t is.” Wisdom was 
younger in Jierck’s time. If her childish voice 
did at all admonish him, the gurgle in his 
throat made him deaf to the warning at his 
tympanum. He took too much, poor fellow! 
Pardon him, and remember that an ill-omened 
she-wolf had just crossed his path. 

There is a sage and honorable law that limits 
the robbing of orchards, — “ Eat your fill ; but 
don’t fill your pockets.” Jierck was rash enough 
to violate this also. He pocketed a pint of 
his sorry comforter. He found an empty bottle 
labelled Hair-Oil. There were nameless un- 
guents before Macassar, and this bottle had held 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


287 


one of them. Jierck filled it from the jug, and 
made for the barn, just in time to evade pretty 
Kate carrying supper to the others and her 
Hendrecus. 

Supper was done. Dusk was come. Jierck 
set out with his party for the rendezvous. The 
peril was considerable. Hanging was the pen- 
alty for being caught. So they sharpened their 
eyes, pricked up their ears, trod softly, and 
tried to persuade the runt pony to do the same. 
Jierck brought up the rear, in a state of sullen 
contempt. 

At the cross-roads Major Skerrett and his 
companion met them. It was night now in 
the woods. A red belt of day behind D under- 
berg stared watchfully at the party. 

“ I will go down to the house alone, as we ar- 
ranged, whispered the Major. “ The negro will 
admit me to the dining-room. Do you be ready 
on the lawn by the window at half past eight! 
It will be dark enough for safety by that time. 
When I open the window and whistle, jump in 
and take our man. That is my plan. If any- 
thing goes wrong, I will alter it. But nothing 
will go wrong. Good-bye ! ” 

He moved away through the darkness. 

The party waited in the woods, listening to 
the sounds of evening. It grew chilly. Jierck 
Dewitt retired again and again, and sipped from 


288 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


his bottle, labelled Hair-Oil. He was ashamed 
of himself for violating his pledge to the Major. 
But he soliloquized, “ I am only taking just 
enough to keep my spirits up, — just enough to 
make a man of me after my making a baby of 
myself at sight of that woman.’’ 

Just enough ! It is not pleasant to betray the 
errors of the past ; but it is a truth grave in this 
history that the unhappy fellow had much more 
than enough when, at half past eight, he halted 
his party under cover of the shrubbery on the 
lawn at Brothertoft Manor-Hou je. 


XII. 


Eight o’clock, and Major Kerr sat sipping Ma- 
deira in the dining-room at Brothertoft Manor. 

“ What ’s the use of eight candles ? ” he said 
to Voltaire. 

“ Only four, sir,” says the butler, depositing 
two branches on the table. 

“ I see eight, — no, sixteen. Well, let ’em 
burn ! Economy be hanged ! I say, nigger ! ” 

“ What, sir ? ” Voltaire perceived that his 
deteriorating process had been effectual. Kerr 
saw double and spoke thick. 

“I’m tired of sitting here alone. Can’t you 
sing me a song ? ” 

“ I used to sing like a boblink, sir ; but since 
I lost my front tooth the music all leaks out in 
dribbles. There ’s a redcoat sargeant just come 
into the kitchen. He looks like a most a mighty 
powerful singer. Shall I bring him in ? ” 

“ Yes. I ain’t proud. A Kerr can associate 
with anybody.” 

As Voltaire left the room, he picked up the 
Major’s sword and pistols from the sideboard, 
13 » 


290 


EDWIN BKOTHERTOFT. 


Plato was in the hall, stationed tc watch the 
door of the parlor where the lady of the Manor 
was sitting solitary. His father handed him the 
arms. The seven seals of mystery had been 
opened, and Plato was deep in the plot. 

“ Take ’em, boy,” says Voltaire, “ and be 
ready ! ” 

Ready for what ? Neither divined. But Plato 
took the weapons with dignity, and became a 
generalissimo in his own estimation. He bran- 
dished the sword, and made a lunge at some 
imaginary antagonist. Then he lifted a cocked 
pistol, and took aim. It was comic in the dim 
hall to see him going through his silent panto- 
mime. He thrust, he parried, he dropped his 
point, he bowed like an accomplished master of 
fence. He raised a pistol, bowed graciously, as 
if to say, “ Apres vous , Monsieur ,” touched trig- 
ger, assumed a look half triumph, half con- 
cern, then laid his hand upon his heart and 
smiled the smile of one whose wounded honor 
is avenged. All this was done without so much 
as a chuckle. 

While Plato was at his noiseless gymnastics, 
Voltaire, through the pantry, had conducted the 
Sergeant into Major Kerr’s presence. 

Skerrett, with his moustache off, and in a dis- 
guise a world too shrunk for his shanks and 
shoulders, looked much less the hero than when 


EDWIN BKOTHEETOFT. 291 

he first stepped forth upon these pages. Indeed, 
at this moment he did not feel very heroic. 

He was sailing under false colors. He was 
acting a lie. He did not like the business, 
whatever the motive was. He took his seat 
vis-a-vis the rival Major, and thought, “ If fair 
play is a jewel, I must give the effect of paste 
set in pinchbeck at this moment.” 

“ Glad to see you, Sargeant,” says Kerr, speak- 
ing thick. “ That ’s right,” — to Yoltaire. u Give 
him some wine ! Fine stuff they have in this 
house. Better than regulation grog, Sargeant.” 

The new-comer nodded, and went at his supper 
vigorously. 

“ Goshshave th’ King, Sargn ! Buppers ! ” says 
Kerr, holding up his glass aslant and spilling a 
little. 

“ Bumpers ! ” responded the other. 

“ Frustrate their politics. Confound their 
knavish tricks,” chanted Kerr. “ Rebblstricksh, 
I mean, Sargn. Cuffoud ’em. Buppers ! ” 

“ Bumpers ! ” Skerrett rejoined, still feeling 
great compunction at the part he was playing. 

“ Sargeant,” says Kerr, “ I ’m going to tell you 
something.” 

Skerrett looked attention. 

“ I ’m going to be married to-morrow,” — 
spoken confidentially. 

“Ah!” 


292 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


“ Don’t say, 4 Ah ! ’ Sargeant. Ah expreshes 
doubtsh. Say, Oh ! Sargeant. I askitshpussonle- 
faver, Sargn. Say, Oh ! ” 

44 Oh ! ” 

44 That ’s right. Oh is congratulation ” He 
made muddy work with the last word. 44 Yes, 
Sargeant, doocid pretty girl, doocid pretty prop- 
erty. Want to see her, Sargeant?” 

44 No, I thank you.” 

44 Yes, you do, Sargeant. Don’t tell me ! 
I ’m a lucky fellow, Sargeant. Always was 
with women. I ’ll have her down in the parlor, 
by and by, and you can look through the crack 
of the door and see her. She loves me so much, 
Sargeant, that she’s gone up stairs to look at 
her wedding-dress and wish for to-morrow.” 

This discourse, spoken thick, and the leer that 
emphasized it, quite dissipated all Major Sker- 
rett’s scruples. 

44 Faugh!” thought he. 44 Everything is fair 
play against such a beast. I never comprehend- 
ed before what a horror to a delicate woman 
must be marriage with such a creature. Life 
would drag on one long indignity, and every 
day fresh misery and fresh disgust. Faugh ! 
sitting here and hearing him talk gives me 
qualms, — me, a man of the world, who have 
certainly had time to outgrow my squeamish- 
ness. I could not tolerate the thought of giving 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


293 


up any woman, even one with heart deflowered, 
to the degradation of this fellow’s society. He 
shall not have Mr. Brothertoft’s gentle daughter.. 
No, not if I have to shoot him where he sits. 
No, not if I have to stab the lady.” 

Peter looked at his watch. Time was not up. 
He was compelled to bottle his indignation and 
listen civilly. 

Kerr grew more and more confidential in his 
cups. Faugh ! the jokes he made ! the staves 
he trolled ! the winks he winked ! the imbecile 
laughs he roared ! the conquests he recounted 
in love and war ! Faugh, that such brutes have 
sometimes dragged the pure and the gentle down 
to their level ! Faugh, that they still grovel on 
our earth, so that the artist, compelled by the 
conditions of his work to paint such a Silenus, 
finds his unpleasant models thick about him, 
and paints under the sharp spur of personal 
disgust and personal harm ! 

The two Majors in the dining-room, the Lady 
of the Manor in a drowsy revery over the parlor 
fire, Lucy eager and trembling in her cham- 
ber, — for Voltaire has whispered that the hero 
has come, — Volante saddled, Plato gesticulat- 
ing with sword and pistols ; — now let us see 
what the plotters without the Manor-House are 
doing. 


XIII. 


What are the plotters without the Manor- 
House doing? 

All, except Jierck Dewitt, are standing at 
ease, and waiting for their commander’s signal. 
Old Sam Galsworthy has his hand on the muzzle 
of the runt pony, and at the faintest symptom 
of a whinny in reply to Volante’s whinnies in 
the stable, Sam plugs the pony’s nostrils with 
his thumbs and holds his jaws together with 
iron hand. Ike Yan Wart leans on his gun, 
and looks dull. Hendrecus Canady stands to 
his gun, and looks sharp. Sergeant Lincoln- 
Brothertoft keeps himself in a maze, — for to 
think would be to doubt of success, and to 
doubt is to fail. 

This of course is the moment when Jierck 
Dewitt should be “ stiff as the Lord Chancel- 
lor,” limber as the Lord Chief Acrobate, steady 
as a steeple, and silent as a sexton. 

But Jierck is at present a tipsy man, in happy- 
go-lucky mood. He begins to grow impatient 
waiting in the cold and shamming sober. A 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


295 


thought strikes him. He can do something 
more amusing than stand and handle a chilly 
trigger. 

“ I ’in going to take a turn about the house 
to see all ’s safe, Orderly ,” whispered he to 
Lincoln- Brother toft. “I leave you in charge of 
the party. Keep a sharp look-out. I will be 
back in half a jiff.” 

Jierck stole off into the darkness. 

Recollections of former exploits hereabouts 
had revived in his muddled brain. 

44 Hair-oil ’s all gone,” he thought. “ Now 
if I could only get into the cellar of the old 
house, I should have my choice of liquors, just 
as I did ten years ago, when Lady Brothertoft 
had me caught and licked for breaking in. 
By Congress, it ’s worth a try ! The cellar 
window-bars used to be loose enough. It 
won’t do any harm to give ’em a pull all round. 
If one gives, I can tumble in, get a drink to 
keep my spirits up, and be back long before 
the Major calls.” 

His fancy was hardly so coherent as this, but 
he obeyed it. He crept about the house and 
fumbled at the bars of the nearest window r . 
The windows opened on a level with the ground. 

“No go,” said he; 4 4 try another ! ” He did, 
and another. 

At the third window the solder was loose 


296 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


and a bar shaky. Jierck dug at the solder 
with his knife and worked the bar about. It 
still resisted, and he admonished it in a drunken 
whisper, “ I ’m ashamed of you, you dum bit 
of rusty iron, keepin’ a patriot away from Tory 
property. Give in now, like a good feller, before 
I git mad and do something rash.” 

At this the bar joined the patriots, and gave 
in. It came away in Jierck’s hand. He laid 
the cold iron on the frosty grass. He could 
now take out the stone into which the bar had 
been set. He did so. That released the foot 
of the next bar. He bent this aside. There 
was room for him to squeeze through. 

He carefully backed into the cellar. 

It was drunkard’s luck. A sober man would 
not have tried it. Moral : do not be too sober 
in your head or your heart, if you would pluck 
success among the nettles. 

Jierck took a step forward in the Cimme- 
rian darkness of the cellar. He fell plump into 
a heap of that rubbish which Yoltaire’s flaring 
dip revealed to us in the morning. 

“ This noise won’t do,” he thought. “ One 
tumble will pass for rats. Another may bring 
Lady B. down stairs. I should n’t like to see 
her standing here with a candle in one hand 
and a knife in the other. She ’d stick me, 
like pork. No; I must strike a light. A flash 
will do, to show me the way.” 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


297 

He unplugged his powder-horn with his teeth 
and poured a charge on the stone floor. 

u Old Brindle did n’t know how many red- 
coats that horn of his was to be the means of 
boring through,” thought Jierck. “ Powder ’s 
an istooshn.” 

In the dark his flint and steel tinkled to- 
gether. 

A spark flew. Fizz. Fiat lux! The powder 
flashed. 

Cimmerian corners, barrels of curly shavings 
and rags out of curl, casks gone to hoops and 
staves, shattered furniture, all the rubbishy 
properties of a cellar scene, “ started into light 
and made the lighter start.” Light gave them 
a knowing look and was out again. The scenery 
scuffled back into darkness. 

Jierck afterward found that he had marked 
every object in that black hole, as they flung 
forward at the flash. He had marked the scene, 
and it was to haunt him always. At present, 
he was thinking of nothing but the wine-room. 
His fireworks had shown him the way clear 
to it. He saw also that the door was ajar, as 
Yoltaire had left it in the morning. 

He moved forward now without stumble or 
tumble. He felt his way into the wine-room. 
He touched the rough dusty backs of a battery 
of recumbent bottles. He grasped one by the 

13 * 


298 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


fleck. With a skilful blow against the shelf, 
fie knocked off the yellow-sealed muzzle. 

“ Fire away ! ” said he, presenting the weapon 
at his lips. 

Gurgle. 

He stopped to take breath. He felt like a 
boy again. The wine tasted as it did ten years 
ago, when he first stole into the cellar, and 
was punished for it. 

“ She can’t have me whaled this time,” he 
muttered. “ Here goes again ! What stuff it 
is!” 

Gurgle a second time, and the cellar seems 
40 listen. 

But while that amber stream was flowing 
between the white stalactites in Jierck’s upper 
jaw, and the white stalagmites in his lower, and 
rippling against that pink stalactite his palate, 
before it leaped farther down the grotto, — 
suddenly : — 

A scream above, a rush, a shot, a scuffle. 

For an instant Jierck was paralyzed. He 
stood listening. The bottle, for which he had 
deserted his post, slipped through his alarmed 
fingers and crashed on the floor. The sound 
half recalled him to himself. 

He turned and sprang for that dim parallelo- 
gram of lighter darkness, — the window where 
he had entered. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


299 


Awkwardly, drunkenly, trembling with haste 
and shame, he clambered up upon the sill and 
began to back out between the bars. His coat 
caught against the bent iron. 

As he stopped to disengage it, he peered 
suspiciously back into the cellar. 

A little spot of red glow in the midst of 
the blackness caught his eye. 

“ Aha ! ” he thought, “ my powder lighted 
something tindery in that heap of rubbish. It 
will soon eat what it ’s got, and go out on the 
stone floor. And if it don’t go out, let it burn ! 
Blast the old house ! it ’s a nest of Tories. Blast 
it! the mistress had me thrashed like a dog. 
Blast the house ! my wife was spoilt here, and 
that spoilt me. Blast it ! let it burn, and show 
us the way out of the country ! ” 

Jierck tore his coat from the bar, backed 
out, picked up his gun and skulked tipsily off 
to join his party. 


XI Y. 


Jierck Dewitt’s companions waited, at first 
silently, then anxiously, for his return. 

Moments passed, and he was still gone. 

“ I hope he hain’t played us a trick,” whispered 
Van Wart. 

“ Not he ! ” says honest Sam Galsworthy. 

“ I ’ll tell you what it is, boys,” whispers the 
root-doctor’s son. Jierck has got liquor aboard. 
Taint mutiny to say so, now he ’s gone. I heard 
him walk tipsy when we came from the barn. 
When we got here, I saw he stood too ramrod 
for a sober man. You know how it is. Since 
his wife went bad, he ’s lived on rum for stiddy 
victuals. He swore off to Major Skerrett. But 
he did n’t swear strong enough, or else some- 
thin’ strange has drawed his cork.” 

“ If that is so,” said Lincoln-Brothertoft, “ I 
must follow, and see that he does not risk him- 
self or us. Watch, men, for your lives!” 

“ They may call that man Orderly Lincoln,” 
says Hendrecus Canady, as the other disappeared 
about the house, “ but I believe he ’s Tommy 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


301 


Jefferson or some other Congressman in dis- 
guise. He talks powerful dictionary. And hov 
did he come to know this country like a hawk 
and like a hoppertoad both?” 

It seemed sad and sorry business to Edwin 
Brother toft to go prowling like a burglar about 
the home of his forefathers. 

He followed Jierck around the rear of the 
house. All the familiar objects wore an un- 
kindly, alienated look. The walls were grim, 
the windows were dark, the whole building said 
to him, “ You are an exile and an intruder.” 

But he had no time for sentimental regrets. 
He turned the northern side of the house. A 
bright light burned in Lucy’s chamber in the 
tower. He could see a shadowy figure moving 
behind the curtain. 

“ My child ! in a few moments we shall meet,” 
he thought. 

Nothing to be seen of Jierck Dewitt! The 
sight of his daughter’s form revived his anxiety. 
Peering into the dark, he passed about the 
corner of the turret. 

He stopped opposite the parlor windows on 
the front. A shutter stood open. A faint light, 
as from a flickering wood-fire within, gleamed 
out into the hazy night. The window-sill was 
breast high to a man. 


302 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


“ There we used to sit,” he murmured, “ my 
wife and I. There by the fire, in the evenings 
of autumns long passed, I have watched her 
love dying, and all my hopeful vigor dying, - 
dying into ashes.” 

The mighty despotism of an old love mastered 
him for a moment. There was little bitterness 
in his heart. These scenes, once so dear, be- 
came dear to him again. He pardoned them for 
their unconscious share in the tragedy of his life. 

“ I must have one glance into that room,” ho 
thought. “ My memory of it will be a trouble- 
some ghost in my brain, until I have laid "lie 
ghost with a sight of the reality.” 

He stole forward softly over the crisp, frosty 
grass, and looked cautiously in at the window. 

Mrs. Brothertoft was seated alone before the 
fire. Guilt must sit alone and dwell alone. 
Loneliness is the necessity and the punishment 
of guilty hearts. No friends are faithful but the 
noble and the pure, and them guilt dreads and 
rejects. Mrs. Brothertoft was sitting alone in 
the fire-lit room. It was an instant before her 
husband’s eyes could distinguish objects within. 
He drew close to the window. He perceived 
her. A thrill of pity and pardon killed all his 
old rancors. He felt that, though he must war 
against her for his daughter’s sake, he fought, 
reserving an infinite tenderness for his foe. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOET. 


308 


And she within, — had she heard that stealthy 
step of his upon the stiffened grass and the dry 
leaves ? Had his faint sigh penetrated to her, as 
she sat silent and moody? Did she feel the 
magnetism of human presence, — the spiritual 
touch of a spirit wounded by her wrong? Or 
was it merely that in these days of alarm and 
violence she kept her senses trained and alert ? 

He saw her cruel face turn suddenly, stare 
into the night, and mark an intruder. 

For one breath he stood motionless. 

Then, as she sprang forward to the window and 
shouted for help, he turned and ran around the 
rear of the house to the spot where he had left 
his comrades. 


XY. 


Half past eight, and the two majors still sat 
vis-a-vis in the dining-room. 

“I am tired of this,” thought Skerrett. “I 
have had enough of swallowing bumpers to this 
fellow’s 4 buppers.’ I have heard enough of his 
foulness, his boasts, and his drivel. I could 
never have been patient so long except for the 
lady’s sake. Every word and look of his is an 
imperative command to me to make sure of her 
safety. Yes, yes, Yoltaire ! You need n’t nod 
and wink that she is ready and anxious. Ten 
minutes more, to be positive that my men are 
come, — and then, Major, please the Goddess of 
Liberty, I ’ll forbid your banns, and walk off 
with your person. I ’m sorry for you, brute as 
you are. And you will not like your wineless 
quarters with Old Put.” 

Monstrous long minutes, those final ten ! At 
the rate of a thousand a minute, shades of doubt 
drifted across Peter’s mind. 

Who has not known suspense and its mis- 
eries ? — something hanging over him by a hair, 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


305 


or he hanging by a hair over nothing. Patience, 
Peter Skerrett ! The pendulum ticks. It checks 
off the minutes, surely. 

And while those minutes pass, tipsy Jierck 
Dewitt is at work in the cellar, trying to drown 
the misery that this guilty house has caused him. 

The ten were almost ended, when Brotliertoft 
started to search for the stray leader, that other 
victim of a woman’s disloyalty. 

It was in the very last of the ten that Mrs. 
Brotliertoft turned suddenly and saw an un- 
known face staring in at her, as she sat in the 
dusky parlor. 

Time was up. Major Skerrett walked quietly 
to the window, threw up the sash, opened the 
nhutters, and whistled in his men. 

Three only came leaping in at the summons. 


XYI. 

Enter through the dining-room window, Ike 
Van Wart, old Sam Galsworthy, and Hendrecus 
Canady. 

At the same moment Mrs. Brothertoft’s cry 
for help rang through the house. Jierck De- 
witt in the cellar heard it. Lucy in her turret 
heard it. Plato in the hall could not but heai 
it, close at his ears. 

Plato was still on guard, playing pantomime 
with the weapons. He stood, with pistol out- 
stretched, pointing at an imaginary foe. It was 
a duello he was fancying. He had received the 
other party’s fire unscathed. Now his turn was 
come. He proudly covered his invisible antag- 
onist with his pistol at full cock. 

“ Apologize, sir,” whispered Plato, “ or — ” 

Here came his mistress’s loud scream for help. 

Plato was petrified. 

Mrs. Brother toft rushed into the hall. 

There was the negro, standing like a statue 
holding forth a weapon to her hand. She seized 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


307 


it. Her sudden fright reacted into a sharp fury. 
She was fearless enough, this cruel virago. 
The touch of a deadly weapon made her long to 
be dealing death. She heard the scuffle in the 
dining-room. 

“ Come ! ” whispered her old comrades, the 
Furies, closing in, and becoming again body of 
her body, spirit of her spirit. “ Come, take your 
chance! Here are marauders, — rebels! Shoot 
one of them ! Practise here ! Then you will 
get over any scruples against blood, and can kill 
the people you hate, if they ever come in your 
way. Now, madam ! ” 

Such a command ran swiftly through her 
brain. She opened the dining-room door. 

Her scream told the assaulting party they 
were discovered. They were pinioning Major 
Kerr in double-quick time. He sat in tipsy be- 
wilderment, mumbling vain protests and vainer 
threats. 

Not one of the group about the captive ob- 
served the mistress of the house, as she softly 
opened the door. 

But another did. 

Edwin Brothertoft, tardily following his party, 
was clambering through the window. 

He saw his wife at the door. She must be 
kept from the danger of any chance shot or 
chance blow in the scuffle. This was his im- 


308 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


pulse. He sprang forward to put her away 
gently. 

She instantly fired at the approaching figure. 

He fell. 

He staggered, and fell. His head struck the 
claw-foot of the table, and he lay there motion 
less, with face upturned and temple bleeding. 

Her husband ! She knew him at once. 

His thin, gray hair drawn back from his mild, 
dreamy face, with the old pardoning look she 
remembered so well and hated so fiercely,. — 
there lay the man she had wronged and ruined, 
dead ; yes, as it seemed, dead at last by her 
own hand. 

“ My husband ! ” 

She said it with a strange, quiet satisfaction. 

Every one paused an instant, while she stood 
looking at her work, with a smile. 

She had done well to wait. Those impalpable 
weapons she used to see in the air had become 
palpable at last. Yes ; she had waited wisely. 
This was self-defence, not murder. She had the 
triumph without the name of crime. 

“ So you must come prowling about here, and 
be shot,” she said to him, as if they were alone 
together. 

And she spurned him with her foot. 

As by this indignity she touched and broke 
down the last limit of womanliness, she felt a 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


309 


great exulting thrill of liberty, a mad sense of 
power. Nothing could offer itself now that she 
was not willing to do. Any future cruelty was a 
trifle to this. Her joy in this homicide promoted 
it to a murder. 

She looked up. The group about Kerr were 
all regarding her. She laughed triumphantly in 
a dreadful bedlam tone, and flung her pistol at 
Major Skerrett. 

He caught the missile with his hand. 

“ Are you mad ? ” said he. “ Do you know 
that you have killed your husband ? Take her 
into the next room, men ! ” 

“ Come, madam,” said Galsworthy, gently. 
“ You did not know it. We are sorry it was 
not one of us. We are Manor men, come to 
take this Britisher prisoner, not to harm anybody 
or anything here.” 

•* Curse you all ! ” she cried, and she made a 
clutch at Sam’s honest face. “ I am not sorry, — 
not 1 ! No ; glad, glad, glad ! And I ’ll have 
you all served so, — no, hung, hung for spies ! ” 

“ Take her away, men ! ” repeated Skerrett. 
“We must confine her. But not here with this 
dead man. Gently now, as gently as you can ; 
remember she ’s a woman ! ” 

“ Woman ! ” says Canady, holding her fingers 
from his face. “No, by the Continental Con- 
gress ! she ’s a hell-cat.” 


310 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


“ No hope for him with such a wound as 
that,” said the Major, kneeling over Brothertoft 
and examining his bloody forehead. “ He seems 
to be quite dead. See to him, Sappho ! Stand 
by Major Kerr, Yan Wart, while I dispose of the 
woman ! ” 

“ Sargn,” mumbled Kerr, “ I ’m sashfied ’t ’s 
all a mshtake.” 

The two men dragged Mrs. Brothertoft, strug- 
gling furiously, across into the parlor, and forced 
her into an arm-chair before the fire. 

Skerrett followed. Plato was in the hall, terri- 
fied at the mischief he had caused. 

“ Run, Plato,” said the Major, “ and have Miss 
Lucy’s mare out. And you, Voltaire, don’t look 
so frightened, man ! We must make the best of 
it. Bring the young lady down some back way ! 
She must not see her father or her mother. 
Horrible, horrible, all ! A dreadful end of all 
this sorrow and sin ! ” 

He passed into the parlor. 

The flickering firelight gave a dim reality to 
the objects there. They stirred, they advanced 
and retreated. The rich old family furniture 
seemed eager to take part in the tragic acts 
now rehearsing. 

Major Skerrett, in the dimness, marked the 
Yandyck on the wall. The torn curtain had not 
been repaired. It still fell away at the upper 


EDWIN BROTIIERTOFT. 


311 


corner, revealing the heads of Colonel Brother- 
toft and his white charger. A startling resem- 
blance the portrait bore to him now lying dead 
across the hall. It might almost seem as if the 
spirit of the departed, with a bitter interest in 
these scenes of old sorrow and joy, and in the 
personages who still moved in them, had iden- 
tified itself with the picture, and was stationed 
there to watch events. 

A single glance gave Major Skerrett these ob- 
jects and impressions. He turned to the mis- 
tress of the house. She sat, baffled and glaring, 
held in the arm-chair by the two men. 

“ Madam,” said Skerrett gravely, “ I regret 
that I must confine you. You have shown your 
power to do harm, and threatened more. I can- 
not take you with me for safety. If I left you 
free, you could start pursuit, and we should be 
caught and hung, as you desire. Boys, tie her 
in the chair. So as not to hurt her now ; but 
carefully, so that she cannot stir hand or foot. 
I hate to seem to maltreat a woman.” 

They belted her and corded her fast in the 
chair. She wrestled frantically, and cursed 
them with unwomanly words, such as no wo- 
man should know. 

“ There you are, ma’am, fast ! ” says Gals- 
worthy, drawing back. “ You ’re tied so you 
won’t feel it, and so you can’t hurt yourself or 
anybody else.” 


312 


EDWIN BROTPERTOFT 


Skerrett heaped up the fire to burn steadily 
and slowly. Then, with great tenderness of 
manner, he laid a shawl over Mrs. Brothertoft’s 
shoulders. 

“ Madam,” said he again, “ I am sincerely 
sorry that I must imprison you. I have tried 
to make you as comfortable as possible. The 
night is fine. This fire will burn till morning. 
I must take your people all away with me, for 
safety ; but they shall be despatched back, as 
soon as we are out of danger, to release you, 
and” — here his voice grew graver — “to bury 
the husband whom you have killed, and in 
whose death you triumph.” 

She made no answer. All the flickering of 
the fire could not shake the cold look of defiance 
now settled on her handsome face. The color 
had faded from her cheeks. Her countenance 
— rimmed with her black hair, disordered in 
the struggle — was like the marble mask of a 
Gorgon. 

The Major paused a moment, listening if she 
would speak. “ It seems brutal to leave her 
so,” he thought. “ But what else can I do ? 
She will grow calm by and by, and sleep. There 
are worse places to pass the night in than a 
comfortable arm-chair before a good fire.” 

“ Good night, madam,” he said, with no trace 
of a taunt in his tone. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


318 


The cold look gave place to an expression 
of utter malignancy and rage, at her impotence 
to do further harm. 

“ Move on, men,” said the Major, and fol- 
lowed them. 

At the door he turned to survey the scene 
once more. Its tragedy terribly fascinated him. 

There sat the lady, with the fire shining on 
her determined profile. She was quiet now ; 
and, from the picture, the heads of the soldier 
and his white horse as quietly regarded her. 

Skerrett closed the door softly. 

He listened an instant without. Would she 
relent ? Would he hear a sob, and then a great 
outburst of penitent agony, when, left to herself, 
she faced the thought of this ghastly accident, 
which she had adopted as a crime? 

He listened. Not a sound ! 

There was no time to lose, and the Major 
hurried after his men. 


XVII. 


All this while Lucy had been waiting anx 
ioasly in her chamber in the turret. 

As twilight faded, she took her farewell of 
river, slopes, groves, and mountains. With dy- 
ing day, all that beloved scene sank deeper into 
her memory. 

At last Voltaire came and whispered: “They 
are come. Be ready when I call ! ” 

She was ready ; and now, in these few mo- 
ments, before she blew out her light and de- 
parted, she studied the familiar objects about her 
with new affection. 

It seemed to her as if all the observation of 
her past life had been half-conscious and dreamy. 

The sudden ripening of her character, by this 
struggle with evil, gave all her faculties force. 

Commonplace objects were no longer common- 
place. Everything in her room became Invested 
with a spiritual significance. 

“ Good bye, my dear old mirror! ” she thought. 
“You have given me much dumb sympathy 
when I smiled or wept. You could not answer 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


315 


my tearful questions, why my innocent life must 
be so dreary. I begin to comprehend at last the 
Myself you have helped me to study. Good bye, 
my bedside ! I had no mother’s lap to rest my 
head on when I prayed. But your cool, white 
cushion never repelled me, whether I knelt in 
doubt or in agony. Good bye, my pillow ! 
thanks for many a night of oblivion ! ihanks 
for many an awakening with hope 1 Viewed! 
Good bye, kind, sheltering walls of m/ refuge ! 
The child you have known so long iv a woman. 
Girlhood ends sharply here. The wjman says, 
Good bye.” 

As she . stood waiting for the signal of flight, 
suddenly her mother’s cry of alarm broke the 
silence. 

At that ill-omened voice, Lucy trembled, and 
for one moment despaired. 

Then came the sharp crack of the pistol-shot. 

The shock startled her into courage. This 
note of battle joined awaked all the combatant in 
her. “ I cannot hide here,” she thought, “ while 
they are in danger for my sake. I cannot fight, 
but I may help, if any one is hurt.” 

One more glance about her chamber, and then 
she closed the door, and shut herself out into the 
wide world. 

At the top of the staircase, the sound of a 
struggle below met her. She paused, and shud- 


316 


EDWIN BROTHERTOET. 


dered. Not for fear. Timidity seemed to JQ 
expunged from the list of her possible emotions. 
She shuddered for horror. 

She recognized her mother’s voice. She 
heard those bedlam cries and curses. These 
were the tones of a woman who had ejected the 
woman, and was a wild beast. Feminine re- 
serve had dropped at last, and the creature 
appeared what her bad life had slowly made her. 

“ What final horror has done this ? ” thought 
Lucy. 

She leaned cautiously over the banisters, and 
beheld the scene in the hall. A sickening sight 
for a daughter to see ! A strange scene in that 
proud and orderly house ! Outward decorum, at 
least, had always reigned there. Evil had now, 
at last, undergone its natural development into 
violence. 

Pale and shivering with excitement, but con- 
scious of a new-born sense of justice and an in- 
exorable hardness of heart against guilt, Lucy 
leaned forward, and saw her mother struggling 
with the two men. She saw the alarmed ne- 
groes. She saw the gentleman, whom she iden- 
tified at a glance as the expected hero, and heard 
his grave voice as he ordered Plato to make her 
horse ready and Yoltaire to seek herself. 

“ A dreadful end of all this sorrow and sin ! 99 
she heard him say. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


317 


Lucy repeated these words to herself in a 
whisper, “A dreadful end! What does he 
mean Y I do not see my father. Can it be ? 
Did she fire the shot ? Has she murdered the 
body, as she has done her best to kill the soul ? ” 

Lucy sprang down the stairs, by Voltaire, and 
into the dining-room. 

There sat Major Kerr, drivelling entreaties to 
his impassive sentry. 

And on the floor, with a stream of blood flow- 
ing over his temple and clotting his gray hair 
lay a man, — her father ! 

Sappho was moaning over him. 

Lucy flung her aside, almost fiercely. She 
crushed her own great cry of anguish. She 
knelt by him and lifted the reverend head with 
her arms. 

And so it happened that when Edwin Brother- 
toft, stunned by a sharp blow from a glanced 
bullet and by his heavy fall, in a moment came 
to himself and unclosed his eyes, he saw his 
daughter’s face hanging over him, and felt her 
arms about his neck. Her tender arms em- 
bracing him, — her lips at his. 

Ah, moment of dear delight! when life re- 
newed perceived that love was there to welcome 
it and to baptize its birth with happy tears ! 

Here Jierck Dewitt reappeared upon the scene. 

Alarm had fallen upon him, like water on a 


318 


EDWIN BROTHEBTOFT. 


tipsy pate under a pump. He was sober enough 
to perceive that he must justify his outsidership 
and make his desertion forgotten. He looked 
through the window, took his cue, and then bus- 
tled forward officiously. He spoke, to be sure, 
with a burr, and trod as if the floor were undu- 
lating gayly beneath him ; but why may not 
haste and eagerness make tongue and feet trip ? 

“ Hooray, Ike ! ” cries he ; “ I ’ve made all 
right outside. Plato ’s just bringing out your 
horse, Miss. Thank you for looking after the 
Sergeant, Miss,” continued Jierck, blundering 
down on his knees beside Mr. Brothertoft. 
“ How do you find yourself, Sergeant ? 0, 

you ’ll do. Only a little love-tap the ball gave 
you. A drop of rum, — capital thing rum, al- 
ways, — a drop on a bit of brown paper, stuck on 
the scratch, and you’re all right. Feel a little 
sick with the jar, don’t you ? Yes. Well, we 
must get you outside into the air. Now, then, 
make a lift. Thank you, Miss. Now, again. 
Why, Sergeant, you ’re almost as steady on your 
pins as I am. Now, Miss, you hold him on that 
side, and here I am on this, stiff as the Lord 
Chancellor. Think you can step over the win- 
dow-sill, Sargeant? Well done! And here we 
are, out in the fresh air ! And here ’s the boy 
with the horse. All right! All right, Major; 
here we are, waiting for you ! ” 


EDWIN BROTHERTOET. 


319 


The last was said to Major Skerrett, who came 
hurrying out after them. 

“ You are not badly hurt, thank God ! ” he 
said, grasping his friend’s hand. 

“No,” replied the other, still feeble with the 
shock, “Heaven does not permit such horror. 
What have you done with her ? ” 

“I have left her confined in the parlor. We 
bound her there, as tenderly as might be. She 
cannot suffer in person at all.” 

“ I suppose I had better take your word for 
it.” 

“ You must. We must not dally a moment. 
Some straggler may have heard the pistol shot 
and be on our track. Now, boys, mount the 
Major on his pony.” 

“My daughter, Skerrett; you will give her 
your hand for good-will,” said the father. 

In the hazy night she could but faintly see 
her paladin, and he her. There was no time 
for thanks and compliments. No time for Lucy 
to search for the one look with all the woman 
in it, and the one word with all the spirit in it, 
that might express her vast passion of gratitude. 
She gave him her hand, containing at least one 
lobe of her heart. He pressed it hastily, and as 
certainly a portion of his heart also was in his 
palm, there may have been an exchange of lobes 
in the hurry. 


320 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


“ Hoist away, Sam ! ” said Hendrecus Canady, 
buckling to one of Major Kerr’s limp legs. 

“ Ay, ay ! ” rejoined Galsworthy, on his side 
boosting bravely at the lubberly carcass of the 
prisoner, while Ike Van Wart held the runt 
pony’s head. “ Seems to me these Britishers 
get drunker when they ’re drunk than we do.” 

“ We’re so full of the spirit of ’76,” rejoined 
the root-doctor’s son, “ that no other kind of 
spirit can please us.” 

“ Cooducher take summuddy elsh, now, 
boysh ? ” boosily entreated poor Kerr ; “ Shrenry 
Clidn wantsh me.” 

Ah, Major ! Sir Henry must continue to want 
you. Nobody listens to your deteriorated King’s 
English and no more of it shall be here re- 
peated. 

“ We have not a moment to lose,” said Major 
Skerrett. “ We must not let our success grow 
cold. I have my prisoner, Mr. Brothertoft, and 
your daughter is with you. Each of us will take 
care of his own. For the first ten miles we had 
better separate. I, with our friend the Major, 
will make a dash along the straight road, and 
you will take to the by-paths and the back 
country, as we agreed. If there is any chase, 
it will be after us, and we can all fight. I will 
give you charge of all the non-combatants. Vol- 
taire, you and your family will travel with your 
master.” 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


321 


“ Yes, sir,” says Yoltaire, “ we never want to 
see this house again, so long as she ’s there. 
The women will come in the morning, and they 
can cut her loose.” 

“ Well, your master will settle that. Until 
Miss Lucy is out of danger you must all stay 
by her. Where ’s Jierck Dewitt ? ” 

“ Here, sir,” says Jierck, from behind Volante. 

“ You ’ve deceived me, and been drinking, 
Jierck.” 

“ I have, Major,” the repentant man replied. 
“ I saw my wife going by, and everything grew 
so black that I had to fire up a little, or I should 
have stuck a knife into me. But I ’m all righl 
now. Trust me once more ! ” 

“ I must ! Go with the lady ! Bring her safe 
through, and I will forget that you have forgotten 
yourself.” 

The two parties separated with “ Good bye ' 
God speed ! ” 

Major Kerr made an attempt at “ Au rtvoir\ 
Miss Lucy.” But his vinous consonants could 
not find their places among his vinous vowels, 
and his civility was inarticulate. 

Skerrett halted, and watched Volante among 
the yellow trees, until there was not even a 
whisk of her tail to be seen across the luminous 
haze of the cool starlit night of October. 

“ Noble horse ! lovely lady ! ” he thought, 
u* u 


822 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


“ It is a sacrifice not to accompany and protect 
her ; but she will be safe, and my duty is with 
my prisoner. Now, ought I not to go back and 
tell the wife that she did not kill her husband ? 
Time is precious. She would only curse and say 
she was sorry she missed. No ; I cannot bear 
again to see a woman so dewomanized. I cannot 
bear to think of that cruel virago as the mother 
of this delicate girl. No ; let her stay there 
alone, and think of herself as a murderess ! 
Perhaps remorse may visit her in the dead of 
night, — perhaps repentance in the holy stillness 
of dawn.” 

Peter took his last look at the mansion. It 
stood dim and unsubstantial in the mist, and 
silent as a cenotaph. 

He overtook his men, and pushed rapidly and 
safely along. But still a vague uneasiness beset 
him, lest, in these days of violence, some disaster 
might befall that deserted house and its helpless 
tenant. Long after he was involved in the dusky 
defiles of the Highlands, he found himself paus- 
ing and looking southward. Every sound in the 
silent night seemed a cry for help from that 
beautiful Fury he had left before the glimmer- 
ing fire, with the portrait watching her, like a 
ghost. 

Poor Kerr ! plaintive at first, then sullen, then 
surly, then doleful. The runt pony set its legs 


EDWIN BROTHERTOET. 


323 


hard down on terra Jirma , and bumped the 
bumptiousness all out of him. 

All the good nature of his captors could not 
better his case. He was sadly dejected in mind 
and flaccid in person when the party issued 
from the Highlands, a little after late moon- 
rise. 

Major Skerrett only waited till he saw the 
pumpkins of the Fishkill plain, lying solitary or 
social, and turning up their cheeks to the cool 
salute of wan and waning Luna. Then he gave 
his prisoner to Yan Wart and Galsworthy, to be 
put to bed at Putnam’s quarters, and himself, 
with Hendrecus, turned back to meet the fugi- 
tives. 

Let us now trace them on their flight from 
Brothertoft Manor. 


XVIII. 


The other party of fugitives took a more cir- 
cuitous route, to the east, through that scantily 
peopled region. 

Volante stepped proudly along, pricking up 
her ears to recognize familiar bugbears, and to 
question strange stocks and stones, whether they 
were “miching malicho” to horse-flesh. 

Brothertoft walked by his daughter’s side. 
Only now and then in their hurried march 
could he take her hand and speak and hear 
some word of tender love. But the conscious- 
ness in each of the other’s presence, and the 
knowledge of the new birth of the holiest of all 
the holy affections between them, was sufficient. 
A vague bliss involved them as they hurried 
through the dim night. And both evaded the 
thought of that Hate they had left behind, — 
that embodied Hate, helpless and alone, at 
Brothertoft Manor. 

The negroes trotted along, babbling comically 
together. 

Jierck Dewitt led the way in silence- 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


325 


“ 1 shall never dare to face Major Skerrett 
again, if I don’t bring these people straight 
through,” — so he thought. “ I am just sober 
enough to walk my chalk if I pin my eyes to it. 
If I look at anything else, or think of anything 
else, this path ’ll go to zigzagging, and splitting- 
up into squirrel-tracks, and climbing up trees. 
Old Yoltaire says he don’t know these back 
roads very well. If I lose the track, we shall 
be nowhere.” 

The region a mile back from the river was 
mostly forest then, with scattered clearings. Of- 
ten the course of our fugitives was merely a 
wood-road, or a cow-path, or an old trail. There 
were giant boles stopping the way, and prone 
trunks barricading it. There were bogs and 
thickets to avoid. 

It is bewildering business to travel through a 
forest in the dark. Jierck Dewitt knew this well. 
He did not distract his attention with talk, or 
recalling the events of the evening. He held 
tight with all his eyes and all his wits to the 
track, commanding it not to divide or meander. 
This severe application steadied his brain. He 
slowly sobered. The fine fumes of his potations 
of Brothertoft Madeira, in the cellar, exhaled. 
The coarser gases of rum from the paternal 
jug split their exit through the sutures of his 
skull. 


326 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


It seemed a moment, it seemed a millennium, 
it was an hour, when the party reached the foot 
of Cedar Ridge, almost three miles from the 
Manor-House. 

Cedar Ridge is a famous look-out. “ What 
you cannot see from there is not worth see- 
ing/ ’ say the neighbors. It rises some three 
hundred feet above the level of the river, and 
surveys highlands north, uplands and lowlands 
south, with Janus-like vision. 

Long before Hendrecus Hudson baptized the 
North River, Cedar Ridge was a sacred mount 
— a hill of Sion — to the Redskins. Fire had 
disforested the summit, and laid bare two bosomy 
mounds, stereoscopic counterparts, with a little 
depression between. A single cedar, old as the 
eldest hills, grew in this hollow. Around it 
had generations of frowzy Indian braves held 
frantic powwows, and danced their bow-legged 
minuets. Many a captive had suffered the fate 
of Saint Sebastian against its trunk, and dab- 
bled the roots with his copper-colored blood. 
Savory fragments of roast Iroquois had fattened 
the soil. Fed on this unwholesome diet, and 
topped every winter by Boreas, the tree made 
hard, red flesh, and bloated into a stunted, 
wicked-looking Dagon, as gnarled and knobby 
as that old yew-tree of Fountains Abbey, which 
— so goes the myth — was Joseph of Arima- 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


327 


thea’s staff, — planted by him there when he was 
on his tour to convert the hairy Britons from 
Angli to Angeli. 

A famous point of view was Cedar Kidge, 
named after this little giant, this squat sovereign 
among evergreens. 

Such a landmark attained without error, Jierck 
Dewitt began to feel secure. He could relax 
his strict attention to his duties as guide, and 
let his thoughts confuse him again. 

The moment he began to review the events 
of the w evening with a sobered brain, he grew 
suddenly troubled. 

He halted where the forest ceased on the 
ridge, and the two bare mounds with the low 
cedar appeared against the sky. He paused 
there, and let Voltaire overtake him. 

This was the third night of that old brave’s 
travels. The present pace was telling on him. 
He was puffing loud and long, as he stopped at 
Jierck’s signal. The others passed on up the 
ridge. The white mare became a spot of light 
in the open. 

“ Voltaire,” whispered Jierck, “ I did n’t see 
the Mistress around when we left the Manor. 
Do you know what was done with her ? ” 

“ Where was you, that you did n’t see ? ” asks 
Voltaire, taking and yielding air in great gasps 
between every word. 


328 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


u Never mind that ! What became of her ? 99 

“ Why you know (puff) that she fired (gasp) 
a pistol (explosion and sigh) at Master ; and 
everybody thought (wheeze) that she ’d shot him 
dead.” Here Voltaire took in a gallon or so 
of night air, and delivered it slowly back, by the 
pint, in the form of a chain of clouds, as white 
as if they came from the lungs of a pure Cau- 
casian. 

This speech explained half the mystery to 
Jierck. His curiosity seemed to become more 
troublesome. He continued anxiously : “Yes, 
yes, I know,” — which he did not until this 
moment. “ But what was done with her after- 
wards. I was outside, doing my part there.” 

“ You was outside, was you ? ” says Voltaire, 
slowly recovering fluency. M Well, I guess they 
wanted you inside.” 

“ A man can’t be in two places at once. What 
did they want me for ? ” 

“ Them two boys — the root-doctor’s son and 
Samuel Galsworthy — is as spry as any two boys 
I ever see. Mighty spry and strong and handy 
boys they is ; but they had a’most a orkud job 
with Mistress, she tearing and scratching so. 
They wanted another hand bad ; but they got 
through, and fixed her up right at last.” 

“ Fixed her ! How ? ” 

“ What you in such an orful hurry about ? 
Let a man take breff, won’t you ? ” 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


329 


“ Yes ; but speak quick ! What did they do 
with her ? Is she left there ? ” 

“ Leff thar ! ” says Voltaire, relapsing into full 
patois. “ Whar would dey leave her ? She ’s 
done tied up in a big arm-cheer in de parlor. 
An’ dar she ’ll stay all dis bressed night, jess 
like a turkey truss up fur to be roast.” And 
he gave a little, triumphant chuckle, that seemed 
to remember old cruelties he had suffered at her 
hands. 

Jierck made no answer. He seemed to need 
breath as much as the negro. He gave a little 
gasp, and sprang up the hill-side. 

Puzzled, Voltaire followed slowly after. 

While they talked, the others had climbed to 
the top of the ridge, and halted to rest where 
the old cedar stood barring the way. 

Jierck Dewitt came panting up to the summit. 

He turned and glanced hastily over the hazy 
breadth of slumbering landscape below. 

Belts of mist lay in the little valleys. Beyond 
was the river, a broad white pathway, like a 
void. And beyond again, the black heaps of 
the mountains westward. Here and there in 
the vague, a dot of light marked a farm-house. 
The lanterns of the British frigates were to be 
seen twinkling like reflections of stars in water. 

It may have been fancy, but in the silence 
Lucy thought that she heard the far-away sound 


330 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


of the Tartar’s bell striking four bells, ten o’clock, 
and her consorts responding. 

Jierck continued peering intently into the 
dark. 

His seeming alarm communicated itself to the 
party. 

“ What is it ? ” said Brothertoft. “ Do you 
fear pursuit ? ” 

“ No,” whispered Jierck. 

His monosyllable sent a shiver to all their 
hearts. There was a veiled scream in this single 
word, — a revelation of some terrible panic await- 
ing them. 

“ I must see farther,” resumed Dewitt, in the 
same curdling tone ; and he sprang up the 
mound on the right. 

Edwin Brothertoft, impressed by this strange 
terror, followed. 

He was within a dozen feet of the summit, 
and its wider reach of view, when Jierck leaped 
down and seized him tight by both shoulders. 
Jierck caught breath. Then, with his face close 
to the other’s, — “ My God ! ” he hissed, “ I ’ve 
set the house on fire. We ’ve left that woman 
there, tied, to burn to death.” 


XIX. 


Edwin Brothertoft shook off the man’s clutch 
of horror, and stared southward. 

A dull glow, like the light of moonrise through 
mist, was visible close to the dark line of the 
horizon. 

Instantly, as he looked, the glow deepened. 
The black mass of the Manor-House appeared 
against the light. The fire must be in the rear 
and below. An alarm-gun from the frigate came 
booming through the silence. 

While they stood paralyzed, Edwin Brothertoft 
sprang down from the mound, tore his daugh- 
ter from the saddle, and was mounted himself 
quick as thought. 

“ I must save her ! ” he cried, — “ your mother, 
my wife ! ” 

He was gone. 

A moment they could see the white horse, 
like a v flash of light, as she flung down the 
break-neck hill-side. 

Then she leaped into the mist, and a moment 
more they could hear her hoofs clattering. 


332 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


They stood appalled and speechless. 

Heart-beat by heart-beat it seemed that the 
fire grew intenser. All the world was blotted 
out for the gazers, except that one red spot, 
like a displaced moonrise, far to the southward. 

Fire was not master yet. Who could say ? 
Only three long miles. He might save her. 
Other succor might come. 

Lucy gave one more look into that ocean 
of mist where she knew her father was strug- 
gling. Then, quick but quiet, she seized poor 
Jierck Dewitt’s arm. 

“ Come,” she said ; “ show me the way, — ■ 
the shortest way. I will follow my father.” 


XX. 


Brothertoft galloped down the hill-side. He 
had no whip or spur, but the mare took in his 
passion, made it her own, and dashed forward 
madly. No winding by comfortable curves for 
them ! They bore straight for the house. 

Three miles from Cedar Ridge, — three miles 
to go ! and broken country, all hill and gully ! 
No sane man could gallop it by day. A night 
ride there might be the dream of a madman. 
There were belts of forest, dense and dark, with 
trees standing thick as palisades. There were 
ravines crowded with thorny thickets. There 
were stony brooks, and dry channels stonier. 
There were high walls slanting up the sharp 
slopes of the scattered clearings. Down was 
steep, and up was steep, and it was all up and 
down. But, though darkness trebled the dan- 
ger, horse or rider never shrank. They bore 
straight on. Three miles to go! 

And while they galloped, the rider’s thought 
galloped. Sometimes it burst out into a cry of 
encouragement for his horse ; sometimes it was 


334 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


unspoken ; but all the while it went on wildly, 
thus : — 

“ On, Yolante ! Straight for that light to the 
south ! Fires move fast ; we must go faster. Only 
three miles away, and there she sits bound, — and 
the flames coming, — she I once loved, God knows 
how faithfully ! Gallop, gallop, Yolante ! 

“ Bravely ! here we are down the ridge ! 
Now, stretch out over this smooth bit of clear- 
ing ! Yes ; that black line is a stone wall. 
Measure it, Yolante! Not four feet! Good 
practice for our first leap ! Easy now, steady ! 
Hurrah ! Over and a foot to spare ! Well done, 
horse ! And I have been a plodding foot-soldier ! 
But I can ride still, like a boy, side-saddle or no 
saddle. A Brothertoft cannot lose the cavalier. 
We shall win. 

“What, Yolante? Nothing to fear, — that 
white strip in the dell ! Only a brook. Barely 
twelve feet to leap. Never mind the dark and 
the bad start ! Remember my wife, — she burns, 
if we flinch. Now, together ! Hurrah ! Over, 
thank God ! Splashed, but safe over and away ! 

“ A clearing again. Shame, Yolante ! Are 
you a ploughman’s horse, that you labor so 
clumsily in these furrows ? See that horrible 
glow upon the sky ! This wood hides it again. 
Idle forest ! why was it not burned clean from 
the ground a century ago ? Everything baffles. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


835 


No, Volante ! No turning aside for this wind- 
row! Over, over! Through, through, and now 
straight on ! Yes ; the hill is steep, but we 
must gallop down it. No stumbling. What! 
another wall, and higher ? You shrink ! No, — 
you must. She shall not burn! Now, God 
help us! Down? No; up and off! Hurrah! 

“ How we have rattled through those two 
miles! And here is the road. Easier travel- 
ling, if you can only take that worm fence ! 
The top bars are sure to be rotten. A fair start, 
my good mare, and do your best! Bravely 
again ! I knew we should crash over. Plain 
sailing now ! What, limping, flagging, Y olante ? 
Shame ! This is a road fit for a lady’s summer- 
evening canter. Shake out, Volante! Let me 
see your stride ! Show your Lincolnshire blood ! 
The winner in this race wins Life, — Life, do you 
hear? Wake up there, you farmers! Turn out 
and help ! Fire at Brothertoft Manor. Fire ! 

u Faster, faster ! Are we too late ? Never ! 
I see the glow brighten against the sky ; but the 
night is still as death; fire will move slow. 
We shall see at the turn of the road. Faster 
now ! She must not burn, sitting there, where I 
saw her by the dear fireside of the years gone 
by, — sitting bound, and the flames snarling. 
Ah ! I so loved her ! I so trusted her ! We 
were young. Life was so beautiful! God was 


336 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


so good! It was miserable that she should 
wound me, and more cruelly wound her own 
soul. But I have forgiven her. 0, let me save 
her, if only to speak peace and pardon ! She 
shall not burn. A dozen strides, and we can see 
the house. Perhaps this great light is the sta- 
bles. No, — everything ! Fire everywhere. Too 
late ! too late ! Never ! I can burn. She shall 
not.” 

And they galloped up the lawn. 


XXI. 


“ I am Fire, a new-comer on the scene at Broth- 
er toft Manor-House. 

“ I was a spark from Jierck Dewitt’s flint, a 
flash of his powder, a feeble smoulder, a pretty, 
graceful little flame, peering about for something 
nutritious. I was weak. I get force as I go. 
Let me once fairly touch fuel, and I will roar 
you, roar you, — ay, and roast you too ! 

“ What a grand pile of rubbish I see, now that 
I can light up this dusky den of a cellar ! Let 
me burrow here ! Let me scamper here ! Aha, 
I am warm and strong ! A leap now ! Hurrah ! 
I am so large and vigorous that I can multiply 
myself. Go, little flames, rummage everywhere. 
Blaze, my children, flash in the corners, find 
what you like, eat and grow fierce. Grow fierce 
and agile ! I mean to exhibit you by and by. 
You must presently run up stairs, make your- 
selves broad and slender, dance, exult, and de- 
vour everywhere. 

“A drop of the famous Brothertoft Madeira, 
now, for Fire and family! Here goes at the 

15 v 


338 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


wine-room. I cannot stop to draw corks. Down 
go the shelves ! Crash go the bottles ! Drink, 
flames, drink ! What nectar ! How this black 
hole of a cellar shines ! Fine wine makes me 
hungry for finer fare ! I could eat titbits now. 
Perhaps I shall find them up stairs. A cradle 
with a fat bambino, — that would be a sweet 
morsel ! A maiden’s bed with a white-limbed 
maiden on it, — that I could take finely. Come 
flames, my children, up stairs, and let us see 
what we can find ! Up, my strongest, my hun- 
griest, my drunkest flames ! up and follow ! 

“ I am Fire [ This house and all that be in it 
are mine.” 


XXII. 


Mrs. Brothertoft sat in the parlor of the de* 
Berted mansion, bound, helpless, and alone. 

She was exhausted and weak after her furious 
struggle with her captors. Mental frenzy had 
wearied her mind. 

As Major Skerrett closed the door, and she was 
left solitary, a little brief sleep, like a faint, fell 
upon her. 

It could have lasted but a moment, for when 
she suddenly awoke, the final footsteps of the re- 
tiring party were still sounding upon the gravel 
road. 

She listened intently. The sound ceased. 
Human presence had departed. Silence about 
her, — except that the fire on the hearth hissed 
and muttered, as fire imprisoned is wont to do, 
in feeble protest against its powerlessness. 

This moment of sleep seemed to draw a line 
sharp as death between two eras in Mrs, Brother 
toft’s history. From the hither side of this em- 
phatic interval of oblivion she could survey her 
past life apart from the present. Violence, Force, 


340 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


had at last intervened in her career, and made 
their mark sharp as the sudden cleft of an earth- 
quake in a plain. 

She had now the opportunity, as she sat bound, 
strictly but not harshly, before a comfortable fire, 
to review her conduct and approve or condemn. 
She could now ask herself why Force had come 
in to baffle her plans, — what laws she had broken 
to merit this inevitable penalty of failure and 
insulting punishment. 

There was a pause in her life, such as is given 
to all erring and guilty lives many times in life, 
and to all souls in death, to look at past ruin 
quietly, and plan, if they will, with larger wisdom 
for the time to come. 

She rapidly put together her facts, and without 
much difficulty comprehended the plot of Kerr’s 
capture and Lucy’s evasion. It angered her to 
be defeated by a “ silly child,” as she had named 
her. But she put this aside for the moment. 
A graver matter was to be considered. 

She thought of her husband, lying in the 
dining-room, slain, as she supposed, by her hand. 

Then, in her soul, began a great and terrible 
battle. “ You are free ! ” her old companion 
Furies whispered her. “ Free of that incubus, 
your husband. Such triumph well repays you 
for the insult of a few hours’ bondage.” 

But then a low voice within her seemed to ask, 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


341 


u Triumph ! Can you name it triumph that you 
have trampled on your womanhood, and done 
murder to a man who gave you only love and 
Dnly pity when you wronged him ? ” 

“ Be proud of yourself, beautiful creature ! ” 
whispered the Furies. “You are an imperial 
woman, rich, masterly, and skilful, with a bril- 
liant career before you.” 

“ Humble yourself before God and your own 
soul, miserable woman ! ” the inner voice re- 
plied. “ Repent, or that murdered man will 
take his stand at your side forever.” 

“ He owed you this vengeance,” her evil spir- 
its hinted, “ for your great disappointment. If 
he had not been a nerveless dreamer, full of 
feeble scruples and sham ambitions, you would 
have had all your heart desired. He basely 
cheated you. He promised everything, and per- 
formed nothing. He was the pride of the Prov- 
ince ; he let himself sink into insignificance. 
Poor-spirited nobody ! It was a kindness to 
snuff out his mean and paltry life.” 

“ Did you see his gentle face as he fell ? ” the 
counter influence made answer. “How gray 
and old he was ! Do you remember him ? — it 
seems but yesterday — a fair youth, kindling 
with the hopes that to him were holy. You 
loved him sometimes, — do you not recognize 
those moments as your noblest ? Have not 


842 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


yours been the false ambitions and the idle 
dreams ? Is not all this misery and failure the 
result of your first trifling with sin, and then 
choosing it? Disloyal woman, — if you are a 
woman, and not a fiend, — your cruelty has 
brought defeat and shame upon you ! Profit by 
this moment of quiet reflection ! see how the 
broken law revenges itself! ” 

“Yes, madam,” the other voices here inter- 
rupted, “ you cannot escape what your weakness 
calls shame. You will never live down scandal. 
The untempted people will never admit you to 
their ranks. Scorn them. Do not yield to 
feeble regrets. Be yourself, — your brave, de- 
fiant self! ” 

The Furies were getting the better. The 
virago was more and more overpowering the 
woman. Sometimes she sat patient. Some- 
times she raged and struggled impotently with 
her bonds. It was terrible in the dim parlor to 
watch her face, and mark the tokens of that mad 
war within. 

The fire in the chimney had been slowly heat- 
ing the logs all this time. They were ripe to 
blaze. Suddenly they burst into a bright flame. 

Mrs. Brothertoft looked up and saw herself in 
the mirror over the fireplace. There was hardly 
time for a thrill of self-admiration. The same 
flash that showed her her o wn face revealed also 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


343 


the reflection of the portrait behind her. She 
saw the heads of Colonel Brothertoft and his 
white horse looking through the torn curtain. 
She had not glanced that way since her scene of 
yesterday evening with the picture. She had 
evaded a sight that recalled her treason. Now it 
forced itself upon her. Here she was bound ; 
and there, over her own head in the mirror, was 
a ghostly shadow of what ? 

What! was this the ghostlier image of her 
husband’s very ghost? Was he there in the can- 
vas ? Had he stolen away out of that dead 
thing once his body, lying only a few steps and 
two doors off? Was he there watching her? 
Why did he wear that triumphant smile ? He 
was not used to smile much in the dreary old 
times ; — never to sneer as this semblance was 
doing. Even that beast, the white horse, shared 
in his master’s exultation over her captivity, — 
his nostrils swelled, and he seemed to pant for 
breath enough to neigh over a victory. 

She stared an instant, fascinated by that faint 
image. There was a certain vague sense of 
relief in its presence. This shadow of her hus- 
band murdered might be a terror ; but he in- 
tervened a third party in the hostile parley 
and the thickening war between her two selves. 
This memento of remorse came to the succor 
of the almost beaten relics of her better nature, 


344 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


and commanded them to turn and make head 
again against that reckless, triumphant, bedlam 
creature, who was fast gaining the final mastery 
and absorbing her total being. 

Was it thus? Had this image of a ghost 
come to say, “ My wife, the old tie cannot break. 
I come to plead with you not to annihilate the 
woman, not to repel the medicine of remorse, 
and make yourself an incurable, irreclaimable 
fiend,” — was this his errand of mercy ? 

Or did he stand there to hound on the Fren- 
zies, spiritual essences, to her, to him visible 
beings, whom she felt seducing her ? Was he 
smiling with delight to see her spirit zigzagging 
across the line between madness and sanity, and 
staggering farther, every turn, away from self- 
control ? Which was this shadow’s office ? 

While she trembled between these questions, 
still staring at those two reflections in the mirror, 
— herself and that image of the portrait, — sud- 
denly the flash of flame in the chimney went 
out. A downward draught sent clouds of white 
smoke drifting about the room. 

Mrs. Brofhertoft peered a moment into the 
darkness. Her own reflection in the mirror was 
just visible, as she stirred her head. She missed 
the other. But there were strange sounds sud- 
denly awakened, — a strange whispering through 
the house. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT 


345 


So long as her seeming, ghostly companion 
was visible, she had kept down her terror. Now, 
as she fancied it still present but unseen, a great 
dread fell upon her. She writhed in her bonds 
to turn and face that portrait on the wall. She 
could, with all her pains, only move enough 
to see a little corner of the curtain. 

Did it move ? Would something unearthly 
presently put aside those dusky folds, and come 
rustling to her side ? 

She listened a moment, and then screamed 
aloud. 

The sound of her own voice a little reassured 
her. She laughed harshly, and her soliloquy 
went on, but wilder, and without the mild en- 
treaties of her better self. 

“ What a fool I am to disturb myself with 
mere paint and canvas ! But I will have that 
picture burnt, — yes, burnt, to-morrow morning. 
The man is gone, and every relic of him and 
his name shall perish from the earth. How 
plainly I seem to see him lying there dead, 
with his face upturned ! What ? Do dead men 
stir ? I think he stirred. Do you dare to lift 
your finger and point at me ? I had a right to 
shoot housebreakers. Put down your finger, 
sir ! You will not ? Bah ! Do what you please, 
you cannot terrify me. You shall be burnt, 
burnt, — do you hear ? I smell fire strangely. 

15 * 


846 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


The smoke from that chimney, — yes, nothing 
else. I am afraid I shall be cold before morn- 
ing ; but now I am feverish. The air seems hot 
and dry. I suppose I have grown excited, tied 
here. What is that low rustling all the while ? 
Sometimes it seems to come from the cellar, 
then it is here. Any one in this room ? Speak ! 
Dewitt, Sarah, is that you come home ? No an- 
swer ; and this whispering grows louder. Some 
other chimney must be smoking. I can hardly 
breathe. I must try to sleep, or I shall go mad 
before morning with that dead man in the house. 
Put down your finger, sir ! Don’t point at me 
like a scliool-boy! What! Is he coming? Is 
that his step I hear in the hall? Let me see, 
he has only two steps to make to the door, five 
across the hall, then two more and he could lean 
over and whisper what he thought of me.” 

She listened awhile to the strange sounds 
below, and then went on : “ If you come in here, 
Edwin Brothertoft, and speak to me, I shall go 
crazy. I cannot hear any of your meek talk. 
Lie where you are till morning, and then, if 
you wish, you shall be buried. Perhaps burning 
was a little too harsh. Morning is not many 
hours away. It must be nearly ten o’clock. 
But if this smoke grows any thicker, I shall cer- 
tainly smother. These ghastly noises get louder 
and louder. What can that crash be? Is the 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


347 


dead man coming? Help, help! Keep him 
away! Mr. Brothertoft, Edwin, if you love me, 
pray stop fumbling at that latch. You know 
how indulgent you always were to my little 
fancies; do not come in, if you please. I am 
afraid, Edwin, afraid. I am so fevered, tied 
here by those cursed brigands, that I shall go 
mad. I am suffocating with this smoke. Will 
some one bring me a little water ? But when 
you come, do not look into that room across 
the hall. There is a gray-headed man lying 
there. He may say I murdered him. Do not 
take notice of him, he was always weak-minded. 
He will say I insulted, wronged, dishonored him, 
and made his life a burden and a shame. Do 
not listen to scandal against a woman ; but bring 
me a drop, one drop of water to cool my throat, 
for I am burning with a horrible fever. If these 
strange noises underneath and all around do not 
cease, I shall certainly go mad. What can it 
mean ? I hear sounds like an army. I would 
rather not receive your friends at present, Mr. 
Brothertoft, if it is their feet and voices I hear. 
This smoke makes my eyes red, and you always 
were proud of my beauty, you know. What ! 
have they lighted their torches, those ghosts in 
the hall ? Or is this glow through the room the 
moon ? No. My God ! Fire ! I shall burn. 
0 Lucy, Lucy ! 0 Edwin, help ! ” 


XXIII. 


Edwin Brothertoft came galloping up to the 
flames. Had he won this race, with a life for 
its prize ? 

The maddened mare tore forward, as if she 
would leap in among the loud riot there. 

Fire everywhere ! A mob of arrogant, roar- 
ing, frenzied flames possessed the cellar and the 
ground-floor. Each window, so long a peaceful 
entrance for sunbeams, now glowed with light 
within, or thrust out great cruel blades of fire, 
striking at darkness. Fire sheathed the base of 
the turret. Agile flames were climbing up its 
sides, and little playful flashes seized the creep- 
ers that overhung Lucy’s window, and, clinging 
to these, peered in through the panes, looking 
for such diet as they craved. 

The husband turned the corner of the house, 
and galloped up to the window, — that window 
where an hour ago lie had stood gazing at the 
proud, hateful face of the woman he loved so 
bitterly. 

The white horse and its rider looked in at the 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


849 


window. And this is what the one quick, com- 
prehensive glance of horror showed them, as a 
draught of air dragged the smoke away. 

Opposite, on the wall, the two heads of the 
picture were just yielding to the flames around 
them. Little buds of flame were sprouting 
through the floor, little tendrils wreathing the 
doors, and drawing a closer circle about the fig- 
ure at their centre. There she sat, as if this 
scene was prepared to illuminate her beauty. 
A gush of air lifted the smoke like a curtain, 
and there she was sitting, her black hair tower- 
ing above her pale forehead, her white arms 
bound to the chair, and the red light of her 
diamond resting upon her white bosom. 

The smoke had half suffocated her. But she 
was revived by the sudden flood of air, as a 
burned door gave way. She turned her head 
toward the window, — did her spirit tell her that 
the heart she had wounded was there ? She 
lifted her feeble head as her husband dashed 
forward, and it seemed to him that, amid all 
the snarling and roaring of the flames, he could 
hear her moan, “ Help, Edwin ! Help ! ” 

The bulbs of flame through the floor shot up 
and grew rank, the wreaths of flame reached 
out and spread fast as the beautiful tendrils of 
a magic vine, the smoke drifted together again, 
and hid the room and the figure sitting there. 


350 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


Over the carpet of flame, through the bower of 
flame, where long streamers redder than autumn 
hung* and climbed, through the thick, blinding, 
suffocating, baffling smoke, Edwin Brotliertoft 
sprang in to save his wife. 

God help him, for his love is strong ! 

By this time, from the Tartar frigate and her 
consorts, boats’-crews were making for the burn- 
ing house. They hoped to handle and furl the 
flames, as they would a flapping main topsail in a 
gale. By this time the Manor people were also 
hurrying up, with neighborly intent to fling 
looking-glasses and crockery from the windows, 
and save them. 

The Tartars were exhilarated by the splendid 
spectacle of fire in revolt. It was indeed a wild 
and passionate scene. From every window fin- 
gers of flame beckoned the world to behold it. 
And now on Lucy’s turret Fire had hoisted its 
banner, as in a castle the flag goes up when the 
master comes to hold holiday. 

The sailors gained the foot of the lawn. This 
pageant burst upon them. They sprang for- 
ward with a hurrah. Suddenly the foremost 
paused and huddled together. What is it? 

A dark figure, bearing some heavy burden, 
appeared at the only window of the front where 
the flames were not overflowing in full streams 
and fountaining upward. 


EDWIN BfcOTHERTOFT. 


351 


The figure came fighting forward Fire 
shouted, and clutched at it. Smoke poured 
around, to bewilder it. The figure — a man’s 
form — staggered and fell. Inward or outward 
— inward into that fiery furnace, or outward 
toward the quiet, frosty air of night — the sailors 
could not see. 

They rushed on more eagerly, but this time 
without the cheer. 

Only the bravest, with Commodore Hotham 
himself at their head, dared face the flames, and 
touch the scorching heat to seek for that es- 
caping figure they had seen. 

They found him lying without, under the 
great window, — a man, and in his arms a 
burned and blackened thing. It might be, they 
thought, a woman. 

They carried them away where the air was 
cool, and the crisp frost was unmelted on the 
grass. The man breathed, and moaned. No 
one knew his face, masked with black smoke. 

With the neighbors, Mrs. Dewitt now came 
running up, and joined the group. 

“ See ! ” said she, with a shudder. “ This was 
my mistress. She always wore this diamond on 
her neck in the evening. She is dead. No ; she 
breathes ! ” 

Yes ; there was the gem, showing red reflec- 
tions of the flames. An hour ago the woman 


352 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


had been a beauty, and the diamond a point of 
admiration, saying, “ Mark this white neck and 
this fair bosom ! ” Now it made the utter ruin 
there more pitiful. 

Some one led forward Yolante, drooping and 
all in a foam. There was evidently some mys- 
tery in this disaster. “ Take these burned crea- 
tures to the nearest house,” said Hotham. 
“ And now, boys, some of you try to save the 
stables. Some come with me at the house. 
There were more people in it.” 

The sailors fought fire. The others carried 
the two bodies to Bilsby’s farm-house. The 
flames showed them their path under the red- 
leaved trees of October. 

The same ruddy light was guiding Lucy 
Brothertoft on her way to what a little while ago 
was home. 

Long before she reached the spot, the roar and 
frenzy of the flames had subsided. 

Nothing was left but the ragged walls and 
the red ruins of the Manor-House. It had been 
punished by fire for the misery and sin it had 
sheltered. 

A guard of sailors, under a lieutenant, pro- 
tected what little property had been saved. 
Lucy learned from them how an unknown man 
had rescued her mother to die away from the 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


353 


She left Voltaire to make some plausible story 
of the kidnapping, and to invent a release of 
hers from the captors’ hands, when the fire they 
had accidentally kindled was discovered. 

She hastened to help the father she loved and 
the mother she pitied so deeply. 

Jierck Dewitt followed her to Bilsby’s door. 

“ Go, Jierck!” she said. “It makes me 
shudder to see you, and think of this dreadful 
harm you have done. Go and tell the whole 
to Major Skerrett.” 

“ Will you speak to my wife, Miss Lucy, and 
show her how she is to blame, — how her wrong 
sent me wrong? Tell her how she and I are 
linked in with ruin here. Perhaps it will help 
you to forgive me if you can better her.” 

Lucy promised. 

She entered the farm-house to encounter her 
holy duties with her parents. 

Jierck hurried off to meet Major Skerrett, give 
him the sorrowful history of the night, and warn 
him away from a region that would be alive by 
daylight, and bayonetting haystacks and hollow 
trees for kidnappers. 

The penitent fellow could get no farther on his 
return than Cedar Ridge. There he saw the red 
embers of the Manor-House watching him from 
the edge of the horizon, like the eye of a Cy 
clops, He was fascinated, and sank down at the 


254 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


foot of the uncanny old cedar, sick with horror 
and fatigue. 

Skerrett and Canady, pressing anxiously on, 
found Jierck there at sunrise, asleep and half 
dead with cold. They roused him, and heard 
his story. 

A little wreath of smoke alone marked the site 
of the Manor-House. Here was the starting- 
point, there was the goal of Edwin Brothertoft’s 
night gallop. It thrilled the Major to hear of 
that wild ride, and to fancy he saw the white 
horse dashing through the darkness on that 
noble errand of mercy. 

“ Some men would have said, 4 Curse her ! let 
her burn ! She ’s hurt me worse than fire ’ll 
hurt her,’ ” says Hendrecus. “ Some would have 
took the turns of the road, and got to the house 
when it was nothing but chimbleys. Some 
would have been afeard of being known, and shot 
for a rebel. I’ve heard say that the Patroon 
was n’t one of the strong kind ; but he ’s done a 
splendid thing here, and I ’m proud of myself 
that I was born on the same soil, and stand a 
chance to have some of the same natural grit 
into me.” 

Nothing further could be done, and it was not 
safe to loiter. The three returned over the 
Highlands to Putnam’s army. And that day, 
and for many days, Peter Skerrett meditated on 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


855 


this terrible end of the sorrow and sin at Broth- 
ertoft Manor. He traced with ghastly interest 
the different paths by which vengeance con- 
verged upon the guilty woman, and saw with 
what careful method her crime had prepared its 
own punishment. “ God grant,” said he, “ that 
she may live to know what love and pity did to 
save her from the horror of her penalty ! ” 


XXIV. 


Would that marred and ruined being, once the 
beautiful Mrs. Brothertoft, ever revive enough 
to ask and receive forgiveness from her hus- 
band ? 

Lucy did not dare to hope it. She watched the 
breathing corpse, and looked to see it any mo- 
ment escape from its bodily torture into death. 

Edwin Brothertoft was but little harmed by 
the flames. A single leap had carried him 
through the fiery circle which was devouring his 
wife, as she sat bound. In an instant he had 
dragged her away over the falling floor, cut her 
free, and was at the window struggling through. 
He had been almost stifled by the smoke, but his 
hurts were slight. In a few days he was at his 
wife’s bedside. 

He alone could interpret the sad, sad language 
of her suffering moans. Her soul, half dormant, 
in a body robbed of all its senses, seemed to per- 
ceive his presence and his absence by some spir- 
itual touch. Would she ever hear his words of 
peace ? 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


357 


The red, ripe leaves grew over-ripe, and fell, 
and buried October. Then came the first days 
of November, with their clear, sharp sunshine, 
and bold, blue sky, and massive white clouds, 
sailing with the northwest wind a month be- 
fore the snow-drifts. Sweet Indian summer fol- 
lowed. Its low southern breezes whispered the 
dying refrain of the times of roses and passion- 
ate sunshine. 

Edwin Brothertoft sat by his wife’s window 
ore twilight of that pensive season. 

A new phase in his life had begun from the 
night of the rescue. By that one bold act of 
heroism he had leaped out of the old feebleness. 
He felt forgotten forces stir in him. His long 
sorrow became to him as a sickness from which a 
man rises fresh and purified. 

In this mood, with the dim landscape before 
him, a symbol of his own sombre history, and 
the glowing sky of evening beyond, symbolizing 
the clear and open regions of his mind’s career 
henceforth, — in this mood he grew tenderer for 
his wife than ever before. 

It was no earthly love he felt for her. That 
had perished long ago. Deceit on her side 
wounded it. Disloyalty killed it. The element 
of passion was gone. There would have been a 
deep sense of shame in recalling his lover fond- 
ness once for a woman since unfaithful. But 


358 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


now he looked back upon her wrongs and his 
errors as irremediable facts, and lie could pity 
both alike. The tendency of such a character as 
hers, so trained as hers, to some great rebellion 
against the eternal laws, some great trial of its 
strength with God, and to some great and final 
lesson of defeat, became plain to him. The law 
of truth in love and faith in marriage is the 
law a woman is likely to break if she is a law- 
breaker. 

She had broken it, and he divined the spiritual 
warfare and the knowledge of defeat and degra- 
dation which had been her spiritual punishment, 
bitterer to bear than this final corporeal ven- 
geance. 

Entering into her heart and reading the 
thoughts there, he utterly forgave and pitied 
her. 

And for himself, — what harm had she done 
him ? None, — so he plainly saw. Except for 
the disenchanting office of this great sorrow, 
he would have lived and died a worldly man. 
When his poetic ardors passed with youth, he 
would have dwindled away a prosperous gen- 
tleman, lost his heroic and martyr spirit, and 
smiled or sneered or trembled at the shout for 
freedom through the land. Except for this great 
sorrow, his graceful gifts would have made him a 
courtier, his refinement would have become fas 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


359 


tidiousness, he would have learned to idolize the 
status quo , and then, when the moment came for 
self-sacrifice, he would have been false to his 
nobler self. That meanness and misery he had 
escaped. That he had escaped it, and knew 
himself to be a man wholly true, was victory. 
The world might repeat its old refrain of dis- 
appointment in his career ; it might say, “ He 
promised to be our brilliant leader, — he is no- 
body. ’’ But it could never say, “ See, there is 
Brothertoft ! He was an ardent patriot ; but 
wealth spoiled him, the Court bought him, and 
he left us meanly.” 

“ My life,” he thought, “ has been somewhat a 
negative. I have missed success. I have missed 
the joy of household peace. And yet I bear no 
grudge against my destiny. I have never for 
one moment been false to the highest truth, and 
that is a victory greater than success.” 

These last words he had spoken aloud. 

In reply, he heard a stir and a murmur from 
his wife. 

He turned to her, and in the dusk he could 
see that her life was recoiling from death to gain 
strength to die. Voice and expression returned 
to her. 

“ Edwin ! ” she called to him, feebly. 

“ Jane ? ” he answered. 

In the pleading tone of her cry, in the sweet 


360 


EDWIN BROTHkRTOFT. 


affection of his one word of response, each read 
the other’s heart. There was no need of long 
interpretation. To her yearning for pardon and 
love, her name upon his Ups gave full assurance 
that both were granted. 

She reached blindly for his hand. He took 
hers tenderly. And there by the solemn twilight 
they parted for a time. Death parted them. 
She awoke in eternity. He stayed, to share a 
little longer in the dreamy work of life. 


XXV. 


A word of farewell to Major Kerr. 

He had a horrid, horrid time at Fishkill. 

Little but pork and beans to eat, little but 
apple-jack to drink, nothing but discomfiture to 
think of. 

He experienced shame. 

A letter was conveyed to him from Lucy 
Brothertoft. She wrote, as kindly as might be, 
what her real feelings had been toward him. 
She also described the sad tragedy of the night 
of his capture. 

The conviction that he was a shabby fellow 
had by this time pierced Kerr’s pachyderm. He 
was grateful to Lucy that she felt no contempt 
for him. But her gentle dignity reproached his 
unmanliness to her, and he became a very de- 
jected penitent. 

General Burgoyne has been an important 
character behind the scenes of this drama. He 
was a clever amateur playwright, and while our 
personages have been doing and suffering, the 
General has been at work at a historical play, 
16 


362 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


which he meant to name, “ Saratoga, or the Last 
of the Rebels.” There was some able acting in 
it, and all the world watched for the catastrophe 
quite breathless and agape. A brilliant pageant 
of a surrender closed the play, in which, to the 
general surprise, it was Jack Burgoyne, and not 
Horatio Gates, who gave up the sword and 
yielded the palm. 

This news came flying down to Fishkill within 
ten days after Major Kerr’s capture. 

The unlucky fellow heard of the great take of 
British and Hessian officers. He began to fear 
prisoners were a drug in the market, and he 
must eat Continental fare till his stomach was 
quite gone. 

“ Write to Sir Henry Clinton,” said Old Put, 
good-naturedly, “ that I ’ll swap you for your 
value in the Yankees he took with the Highland 
forts.” 

, Kerr indited a doleful account of his diet and 
impending dyspepsia to his General. 

“ I must have him back,” said Sir Henry. 
“ Anybody can be an Adjutant ; but nobody in 
His Majesty’s army can carve a saddle of mutton, 
or take out a sidebone, with Kerr.” 

The “ swap ” was arranged. The Major was 
put on board the Tartar, opposite Brothertoft 
Manor. He went off a sadder and a wiser man. 

His capture had served its. purpose of amusing 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


363 


Putnam’s desponding forces. The General had 
been able to write to Washington, “ We have lost 
the Highland forts; but we have taken an Ad- 
jutant”; — and Humphreys had composed a 
doggerel, beginning, — “ 0 Muse, inspire my 
feeble pen, To sing a deed of merit, Performed 
to daunt the enemy, By Major Peter Skerrett.” 

Poor Kerr ! when he reached New York, he 
was all the time haunted by regrets for his lost 
bride. “ Up again, and take another ! ” is the 
only advice to be given under such circum- 
stances. Some other flower of lower degree 
must be a substitute for the rose. 

Cap’n Baylor, late of a whaler, now the chief 
oil man of New York, had a daughter Betty. 
She was a dumpy little maid. Flippers were 
her hands, fin-like were her feet. Nothing stat- 
uesque about her; but she tinkled with coin, 
and that tintinnabulation often opens the eyes 
of Pygmalion. 

Her the Major wooed, and glibly won. 

Cap’n Baylor oiled out his son-in-law’s debts. 
Kerr resigned his Adjutancy, and took his wife 
home. 

Gout presently carried off the knobby old Earl 
of Bendigh. The Bucephalus colt made Brother 
Tom acephalous, by throwing him over a wall. 
Brother Hick succumbed to Bacchus. Harry 
Kerr, our Kerr, became the sixth Earl of 
Bendigh. 


364 


EDWIN BROTIIERTOFT. 


His dumpy Countess studied manners in Eng 
land, and acquired the delicious languor of a 
lady’s-maid. She wore, morning, noon, and 
night, white gloves tight as thumbikins. She 
consumed perfume by the puncheon. But she 
was an honest, merry soul, who would stand no 
bullying. She kept Kerr in order, and made 
him quite a tolerably respectable fellow at last. 

By and by, out of supreme gratitude to her 
for his wedded bliss, he had the Baylor arms 
looked up at the Herald’s office. They were 
found, and quartered with his own, and may 
still be seen on the coat of the Kerrs, Bendigh 
branch, as follows : “ On a rolling sea vert, a 

Leviathan rampant, sifflant proper. Crest, a 
hand grasping a harpoon. Motto, Illic spirat, 
— There she blows.” 


XXYI. 


General Yaughan came down the river from 
Kingston, smelling of arson. Sir Henry Clinton 
destroyed the Highland forts and retired to New 
York. The Continental outposts forthwith re- 
occupied Peekskill. 

With them came Peter Skerrett, and there 
were bristles on his upper lip a week or so old. 

He hastened at once toward the Bilsby farm, 
where the Brothertofts had found shelter. He 
turned aside on the way to see the ruins of the 
Manor-House. 

It was still brilliant October. If the trees that 
first put on crimsons and purples now were sere 
and bare, later comers kept up the pageant. 
Indeed, the great oaks had only just consented 
to the change of season. It took sharp frosts to 
scourge green summer out of them. 

The woods seemed as splendid to Peter Sker- 
rett as when he looked over them on the day 
of his adventure here. Nothing was altered, 
except in one forlorn spot. 

There, instead of the fine old dignified Manor- 


366 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


House, appeared only a dew-sodden heap of cm 
ders and ashes, — the tragic monument of a 
tragedy. 

“ It did well to perish,” thought Skerrett. 
“ It had sheltered crime. Its moral atmosphere 
was tainted. The pure had fled from it. Hap- 
piness never could dwell there.” 

Peter stood leaning against a great oak-tree, 
and studying the scene. The autumn leaves 
around him dallied and drifted, and fell into the 
lap of earth. He lingered, he hesitated, and let 
his looks dally with the vagrant leaves, as they 
circled and floated in the quiet air, choosing the 
spots where they would lay them down and die 

Just now he was in such eager haste; and 
now he hesitated, he lingered, he shrank from ar 
interview he had ardently anticipated. 

The fair girl he had aided to save from a mis- 
erable fate, — her face, seen for a moment dimly 
by starlight, ever haunted him. These heavj 
sorrows, coming upon her young life, filled him 
with infinite pity. As he thought of her, the 
undeveloped true lover in him began to de- 
velop. 

And now, standing in this place where he had 
first seen her in a moment of peril, where he 
had felt the grateful pressure of her hand, he 
perceived how large and vigorous his passion had 
grown from these small beginnings. 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


367 


He feared the meeting he had yearned for. 
It was to assure him whether this was really love 
he felt, or but another passing fancy like the 
others past. 

And if it were the great, deep love he hoped, — 
if, when he saw her face, and touched her hand, 
and heard her voice again, his soul recognized 
hers as the one companion soul, — this filled him 
with another dread. 

For if to know himself a lover, and half foresee 
that, after long and thorough proof of worthiness, 
he might be beloved, were the earliest thrill of 
an immortal joy ; so this meeting, if it named 
him lover, and yet convinced him by sure tokens 
that his love would never be returned, was the 
first keen pang of a sorrow immeasurable. 

No wonder that he waited, and traced the cir- 
cuits of the falling leaves, and simulated to his 
mind a hundred motives for delay. 

It was so still in the warm, sunshiny afternoon 
that he could hear the crumbling cinders fall in 
the ruins, and all about him the ceaseless rustle 
of the showering foliage. 

But presently a noise more articulate sounded 
on the dry carpet of the path behind him. A 
light footstep was coming slowly toward this 
desolated spot. It seemed to Skerrett that he 
divined whose step would bring her hither to 
read again the lesson of the ruins. 


868 


EDWIN BROTHERTOFT. 


He walked forward a little, that his sudden 
appearance against the oak might not startle 
the new-comer. He would not turn. It was 
new to the brave and ardent fellow to perceive 
timidity in his heart, and to evade an encounter 
with any danger. 

The footstep quickened, — a woman’s surely. 
In a moment he heard a sweet voice call his 
name. 

A shy and timorous call, a gentle, trembling 
tone, — it came through the sunshine and made 
all the air music. 

Her voice ! It was the voice he had longed 
and dreaded to hear. But now he feared no 
more. He believed that his immortal joy was 
begun, and these tremors of his soul, in answer 
to the trembles of her call, could never be the 
earliest warnings of an agony. 

He saw her face again, fairer than he had 
dreamed, in the happy sunlight. He felt again 
the thankful pressure of her hand. He listened 
to her earnest words of gratitude. 

They spoke a little — he gravely, she tear- 
fully — of the tragedy of her mother’s life. This 
shadow deepened the tenderness of the lover. 
And she, perceiving this, drew closer to him, 
giving tokens, faint but sure, as he fancied, of 
the slow ripening happiness to grow henceforth. 

Then she guided him to see his friend, her 
father. 


EDWIN BROTHERTO; 


ip(. 


369 


The level sunbeams of evening went before 
them in the path. They disappeared amid the 
wood. Golden sunshine flowed after them. The 
trees showered all the air full of golden leaves 
of good omen. 

It seems the fair beginning of a faithful love. 

Will it end in doubt, sorrow, shame, and for- 
giveness ; or in trust, joy, constancy, and peace ? 


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